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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29112597">The Wild Hunt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed'>TheLionInMyBed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Raised By Wolves [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(has this series been going on long enough I can call it canon-typical?), Animal Death, Bodice-Ripper, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Forced Marriage, M/M, someone just asked me about Hind Etin and lmao I guess this is basically that, that thing where the awkward girl gets a makeover and suddenly she's hot, uhhh jerkin-ripper?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:08:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29112597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When they come across a village living in fear of a marauding elven court, Imrael's first instinct is to help and Khazri's is to get as far away as possible. They don't manage to do either before being overtaken by the court in question. Its ruler, the Lady Valdemar, is powerful, rich and handsome and she takes her responsibilities as a noblewoman seriously; having found two young men alone in the wilds, it is only proper she place them under her protection. Whether she'll let them leave it remains to be seen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Raised By Wolves [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/393619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote three stories for this series last year, and chronologically this is the second but whatever, I'll post them in the order I wrote them I do what I want. </p><p>As the 'forced marriage' tag suggests, this story comes with an underlying threat of sexual assault. It doesn't become too explicit but please do what's right for you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite the late summer heat, despite Imrael having seen everything there was to see, Khazri kept the blankets pulled up high. Imrael’s finger traced the divide between bare, scarred shoulder and heavy wool. “We’re getting quite good at that,” he said.</p><p>Khazri shrugged in the nervy, noncommittal way that Imrael had learned meant he agreed but was too stricken by embarrassment to say so. It was very different from his indifferent shrug, his confused shrug and his disagree-but-reluctant-to-argue shrug. It was all in the angle of the ears. </p><p>Teasing would only make him more skittish, so Imrael rolled over and poked through his discarded clothes until he found his tobacco and rolling papers. Not being able to hold a conversation about sex without it collapsing into shrugs, ear twitches and vanishing into the woods for hours was exasperating, but Imrael made allowances. Being raised by what amounted to a rabid, misandrist cult would do weird things to a man’s boundaries, and the rewards almost made up for any awkwardness. Imrael delighted in how surprised he always seemed. Wary as Khazri was, somehow his own pleasure snuck up on him every time. </p><p>He’d just lit his cigarette and taken a long, lung-searing drag, and Khazri was probably just about to complain about him doing it in the tent, when the howling started.</p><p>It came from some way away, a long, monotonous wail, rising and falling in pitch but never finishing like the howler had no need to stop for breath. </p><p>Imrael shivered. “They don’t sound happy. Bad hunting?”</p><p>“It’s not me.” The blankets slithered to the tent floor, forgotten along with modesty, as Khazri rolled to his feet and drew a long knife from the pile of his discarded clothes. </p><p>Imrael followed him out of the tent, into the sticky summer night. Jeff and Beryl waited there, sat back on their haunches, but the only sound coming from them was uneasy whines. Jeff thrust his muzzle into Khazri’s free hand, and Khazri crouched beside him to scratch his ears. “They’re maybe twenty miles north,” he said. “Dogs, I think. Not wolves.”</p><p>“How do you tell?”</p><p>Beryl whined again, a short, sharp sound that was almost an answer. “They can’t understand them,” Khazri said. </p><p>“How do you know?”</p><p>Another shrug.</p><p>There were plenty of things Khazri was cagy about aside from sex, and the wolves were one of them. Less, Imrael thought, because it made him uncomfortable than because he didn’t seem to understand the mechanics well enough to explain them. He didn’t seem to want to know more either, and that nagged at Imrael like a splinter. </p><p>“Honestly, it’s hard to get too het up over noises ten miles way when you’re naked holding a knife,” he said, taking pity. “Come back to bed.” </p><p>Khazri froze, blush rising like the sun. The moon and the wan glow of the light Imrael had conjured silvered his skin and threw every line of lean muscle into sharp relief. If he’d done something about his hair, he would have looked like he’d been worked from marble by a sexually frustrated sculptor. </p><p>But he smiled and lowered the knife and took the hand Imrael offered him.</p><hr/><p>They came upon the settlement the next day. It was a high stone tower, built atop a bluff, a lighthouse looking out over a sea of grass. Small wood and stone outbuildings huddled around its base like chicks around a hen but there was only a single thread of smoke stitched to the sky. There’d been a wall around it once, six feet of stone, but it was mostly tumbled down, low enough for a man to hop over. </p><p>“We should keep going,” Khazri said, but he sounded resigned to the fact that Imrael was going to want to stop and, indeed, when they’d first seen the smoke he’d plotted a course that would take them towards it without Imrael asking. </p><p>There was a scholar god in Sanovar that was supposedly willing to converse with petitioners, and Imrael was desperate to meet it. He wasn’t so desperate he wouldn’t stop to pull a tooth, though, or take advantage of a comfortable bed if it was offered. It wasn’t likely that such a small settlement would be home to anyone too skilled in healing magic, and Imrael was getting sick of nettles and waybread.</p><p>“Just make sure the wolves don’t take their sheep,” he said cheerfully and Khazri grunted. There was no real danger of it; the wolves didn’t like human settlements and kept close to Khazri’s heels as they walked down the overgrown dirt path that led them past the outhouses to the tower’s base. </p><p>The people might not even notice if they took a sheep; there were plenty of them scudding across the plains, thick wool wobbling on their backs, but no real sign of anyone tending to them. The grass had been nibbled down so much it looked like a thin green carpet. </p><p>“Shouldn’t they have been sheared?” Imrael wondered aloud and Khazri shrugged in agreement. </p><p>The outbuildings seemed deserted as well. No movement in any of them, no cookfires, and when they passed what must once have been a forge, it looked like it had been ransacked. The hoes and shears and shovels one would expect in a working forge were gone, and the anvil stood alone growing a furry orange coat of rust. </p><p>“A plague, do you think?” Imrael said, as much for Khazri’s benefit as his own. “A raid? But why strip the forge?”</p><p>Beryl whined. </p><p>“Something was here. It smelt like…us?” </p><p>“‘Us’?” Imrael looked Khazri over, trying to decide what that meant to a wolf. Male? Elven? In desperate need of a bath? “Can they be a bit more specific?”</p><p>Khazri’s ears dipped in apology. “There’s definitely someone alive in the tower.”</p><p>“Oh good. Something human?” That didn’t mean it was something friendly, but it was still a relief when Khazri nodded confirmation. </p><p>Putting on his most confident face, Imrael strolled up to the tower. It was a small keep, only tall in comparison to its outbuildings, but in better repair than the walls. Someone had repaired the wounds of time with pale lime mortar, giving it an odd, piebald appearance.  </p><p>He couldn’t hear anything from beyond the heavy wooden door, but it wasn’t the silence of absence but suppression; a group of people trying very hard to be quiet. He knocked and someone fell over. </p><p>“Hello,” he said, letting a hint of magic weave comfortingly through the words. “We don’t mean any harm. The opposite of that, actually. I’m a doctor, does anyone in there need healing?” At his back, one of the wolves growled softly, and Khazri probably had a knife in his hand, ready to murder whatever was on the other side, but after Milcom that knowledge was more comforting than worrying. </p><p>The door opened a little way, enough for them to make out a thin slit of a face. A dark eye, a cloud of grey hair, a spray of freckles, and a well-honed butcher’s cleaver in her hand. </p><p>“I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came back,” the woman said. “You promised us a year but I heard the howling and I knew. What’s a faerie’s word worth?”</p><p>After so many months, Khazri’s paranoia had rubbed off enough that Imrael didn’t try to jolly her along through sheer force of personality. He took a careful step back, out of range of the cleaver. “We haven’t taken anything, headwoman.” An educated guess. “We were hoping for a place to stay tonight.”</p><p>“Do you think you’re being clever?” She spat thick phlegm onto the dirt.</p><p>“We aren’t whoever you think we are. We’re just travellers, passing through. If you tell us what happened, we might be able to help.”</p><p>“You can help by finding a ditch and dying in it.”</p><p>“Wait,” said someone inside. The door shook as the woman holding it and the new person struggled, and then a girl pushed through to stand in front of them. She looked to be about sixteen and held a pair of shears clutched in her bony hands. One leg was turned out at an awkward angle; a break healed badly a long time ago. “You’re not from the Hunt?” Dark hair but the same freckles as the headwoman. A granddaughter, possibly. Fear rimmed her eyes in white as she took in his ears, but she stood her ground.</p><p>“No,” Imrael reassured her. “Definitely not. What hunt?”</p><p>“The Wild Hunt. Valdemar’s hunt.”</p><p>That explained the fear. And the howling. Elves that still kept to the old ways, in their secret groves and homes beneath the hills, would ride out sometimes to collect tithes from their human neighbours. Milk and honey, songs and servants. </p><p>“Imrael,” Khazri said softly. “We should go.”</p><p>“Not yet. We aren’t with the hunt. I promise you that. I can understand if you’d prefer us to leave - we’ll go right now if you wish it - but we really can help you. I can mend any injuries you have, and- and perhaps we can negotiate with the Hunt on your behalf.”</p><p>From the sigh behind him, Khazri didn’t agree. </p><p>The headwoman spat yellow phlegm onto the dirt, but she stepped back a little from the doorway. “You’ll not say a word to the Hunt or I’ll slit your throats myself, but we have a man here sick with the winter fever. You mend him, we give you a side of mutton and everything’s square. You leave. No coming back.”</p><p>“We accept your terms,” Imrael said and stepped over the threshold. The man in question lay on a pallet piled high with woollen blankets and sheepskins, shivering and gasping, too weak to cough.</p><p>There were horseshoes hung above the door and everything that had been raided from the forge lay stacked against the walls; sheaves of pokers and garlands of nails. The presence of so much iron made Imrael’s teeth tingle and his bones hum like a beehive. </p><p>“You’ll have to take him outside. I can’t do anything for him in here,” Imrael told them, which led to another round of arguing and cajoling until finally, they conceded Imrael probably wasn’t planning to make off with a dying old man, lifted the rickety bed like it was a litter and carried him out. </p><p>Illnesses were more difficult than mending wounds - with a broken leg it was usually clear enough what the issue was and how best to fix it. Cooling a fever and emptying the fluid from the old man’s lungs wouldn’t cure him without finding the sickness’s cause and burning it out of him. It was killing magic of a sort, and Imrael had always struggled with that. </p><p>By the time he was through, he’d sweated through his shirt and was grateful for the hand Khazri wordlessly offered to help him up. The old man was breathing easily now, though he was old enough and weak enough that Imrael wasn’t sure how much longer he’d bought him. Time enough that the headwoman gave him a gruff nod and the beginnings of a smile.  </p><p>“The mutton?” said Khazri on behalf of the wolves, who sat at his feet, tongues lolling, eyes bright. </p><p>The headwoman - Yen, Imrael had got out of her - grunted. “You see those sheep? There’s your mutton. Go butcher it yourself.”</p><p>There was a queer triumph in her voice. Desperate to get anything over on an elf, Imrael supposed, and so he feigned disgruntlement as Khazri bobbed his head and gave some invisible signal to the wolves, who came to their feet and raced away over the sward. </p><p>There were other people in the tower, most trying to stay out of sight. Mara, lame girl with her shears was the youngest of them and he turned to her and said, “I might be able to mend that for you as well if you like.”</p><p>Some people didn’t see the need for healing. Sometimes the absence of a limb became as much a part of them as the limb had been. Still, they rarely recoiled as violently as the girl did, shying away as though he’d made a threat. </p><p>“No!” cried Yen. “Don’t you dare.”</p><p>Imrael stepped back, hands placatingly at his sides to show he wasn’t about to heal anyone against their will. “I won’t ask for more to do it.”</p><p>“That leg’s the only thing keeping me here,” Mara said, face twisted with misery and longing, and Imrael understood. </p><p>In the storybooks he had measured himself against as a boy, the elven courts liked beautiful youths as servants and made pets out of babes. The old and the sick had no place in their eternal halls. “How long has this been happening?”</p><p>“As long as the tower’s stood. It used to be every ten years,” said a woman who had to be near eighty. “Then every five. Then every single year. We weren’t many to start with, and now we can’t even keep the sheep sheared.”</p><p>Yen spat again. “They say they keep us safe from drakes and redcaps but if they’d asked us then I’d rather face the drakes. <em> We’re </em>not sheep to be minded ‘til it’s time for slaughter.”</p><p>Imrael made the requisite sympathetic noises and bit his tongue against the urge to promise help; though it went against all his instincts, he could feel Khazri’s glare on the back of his neck, heavy as an arresting hand. </p><p>The people of Greywatch - for that was the name of tower and town both - retreated back into their stronghold and Imrael and Khazri walked over to where the wolves crouched, heads buried in the remains of a fat ewe. Imrael decided that was enough distance and opened his mouth. </p><p>“It’s a bad idea,” Khazri said, without even giving Imrael time to explain what the idea was.</p><p>“It’s a great idea. These people need help, and no one else has any chance of negotiating with this Hunt. Except us. They’re not going to enchant and enslave two of their own people.”</p><p>Khazri had dropped to his knees and nudged Jeff out of the way so he could dress the carcass. “They’re not going to negotiate with us.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>The knife flashed, unstitching skin from sinew. “We’re men.”</p><p>“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Imrael said disingenuously. He knew why his parents had left their home in Jatt Hari, carried a newborn across a desert and an ocean to a cold, strange city. Some of the elves in Ferris’ small immigrant community still thought it strange that his parents had sent him to the university.</p><p>Khazri bit at his lip, chewing it ragged as he tugged the sheepskin free of the hindquarters. “Imrael. I told you about- about why I left. This won’t end better.”</p><p>There was no arguing with that. “We don’t know these people,” Imrael said weakly. “They might be reasonable.” Not every elven court was Zalach’ann. Some lived in relative peace with human neighbours; blessing a harvest in exchange for a portion, inspiring a bard in exchange for his service, offering deals that, if they weren’t always fair, were at least entered freely.</p><p>“They’re slavers.” The skin clung stubbornly to the carcass and Khazri sliced at it doggedly, blood gloving his hands and climbing up his wrists. </p><p>“So we just let them keep doing it?”</p><p>“How do we stop them?”</p><p>“We killed a god!”</p><p>“I stabbed myself. You pushed over a stone.” He rolled the sheep free of its skin. It would’ve been a neat job if the wolves hadn’t already worried at the stomach, but it was still a useful piece of hide. Khazri spread salt on it from the same pouch he kept for ghosts and rolled it up to take with them. He was an inveterate packrat, incapable of leaving a kill without stripping it of everything theoretically useful.</p><p>A strong stomach was integral for a healer, and it wasn’t for the naked carcass and its slickly glistening viscera that Imrael turned away to pace. “You’re right,” he said reluctantly. “I know you’re right. I just hate knowing there’s something horrible happening and we’re going to walk away from it.”</p><p>Although he couldn’t see it, he could almost feel Khazri’s shrug. “You healed that man. You did what you could.” And that was that, as far as Khazri was concerned. Sometimes that pragmatism was exhausting, but when Khazri shouldered what he wanted from the carcass and set off across the plain, Imrael followed without complaint. </p><p>The sheep-mown turf was springy under their boots and they made good time, even with the added burden of all that mutton, and Khazri’s insistence that they spend half an hour following the course of a stream they came across. </p><p>“The headwoman said it was too soon for the Hunt to come to Greywatch,” Imrael groused as he stumbled on a loose stone and felt water and probably newts seep into his boots. </p><p>“They also said the Hunt didn’t keep its agreements,” Khazri said, which was hard to argue with. </p><p>The howling came again that night, louder and closer than before. Khazri wouldn’t come to bed but sat up outside the tent watching the night, his wolves beside him. </p><p>The next day, Khazri had the camp packed up and the ashes of their fire buried before Imrael had even finished his breakfast or brushed the sleep from his eyes. The pace he set was faster than the day before, and he led them for the distant shadow of mountains on the horizon. Even after their conversation the day before, the thought of meeting other elves didn’t frighten Imrael as badly as it clearly did Khazri. Still, through the mountains lay Sanovar and its god, and an end to wailing in the night, and so Imrael shouldered his pack and didn’t complain of his aching feet. </p><p>When the valley’s rocky walls rose up around them, Khazri’s hunched shoulders relaxed a little and he slowed his pace. Ten years above ground and he still disliked open spaces. </p><p>“Think we’re safe now?” Imrael asked, dropping his pack and flopping down beside it.</p><p>Khazri set his own pack down and pulled out a waterskin. He looked as tired as Imrael felt. “No,” he said and went to fill it from the thin stream winding through the valley’s bottom.</p><p>The wolves hadn’t had any trouble with the pace, but they hadn’t ranged away as was their wont. They’d stayed close to Khazri all day, dogging his heels and stopping to stare at every circling hawk. “Anyone who follows us this far deserves to catch us,” said Imrael, reaching up to scratch under Jeff’s chin. The wolf huffed out a breath and stretched out next to him, heavy head on imrael’s chest, filling his nose with its musty wet dog smell and keeping him pinned to the ground. Imrael wasn’t inclined to argue. “Honestly, I don’t know why this ‘Hunt’ would bother. Do you think they’re that desperate for husbands?”</p><p>Abruptly, Khazri stood and Jeff leapt up with him. “A few more miles before nightfall?”</p><p>“Gods, I almost hope we get enslaved. It’d be a nice break.” But when Khazri held out a hand, Imrael took it and let himself be dragged back onto his aching feet. “Yes, fine, let’s press on.” With a groan, he shouldered his pack again. </p><p>The landscape grew increasingly uneven as they walked, the gentle grassy plains giving way to hills whose tops were crowned with sharp volcanic rock, their sides furred with scree. It was small consolation to his feet that the desolation was very beautiful. There were trees now, small and gnarled, and thorny brush with bright yellow and orange flowers. The undergrowth was full of small jewel-bright creatures that flew too fast for Imrael to be sure if they were insects, birds or pixies. No more sheep, but they saw small, pale deer far off on the crest of one of the hills. Jeff started away after them but, still nervy, Khazri called him back. </p><p>The howling began earlier, before true dark had even fallen. Despite the weariness lapping at Imrael’s ankles, making each step harder than the one before, they didn’t stop to make camp. They didn’t stop even as the night drew in, pressing close against Imrael’s eyes.</p><p>Imrael found Khazri’s hand in the dark, partly for guidance, mostly as a ward against the fear. “They’re close. What do we do?”</p><p>He couldn’t see Khazri, but he felt him slide his hand free and heard the soft creak of a bow being strung and an arrow notched. Imrael almost wished he had a weapon of his own to draw, not because he had much hope of doing anything, but because it would be embarrassing to be caught lying down. </p><p>The sound grew louder with every minute, not the howls and snarls of Ferris street dogs that had been the lullaby of Imrael’s childhood, but the full-throated baying of hounds upon a trail. Now they could hear the crack and snap of brush breaking underfoot, the heavy pants for air, and then the starlight showing dark flashes of movement all around.</p><p>Imrael’s nerve broke. He conjured a light.</p><p>The head of Khazri’s arrow reflected its pale flame, but so too did the eyes of the beasts that surrounded them. </p><p>They were like no dogs he’d ever seen, the size of a small horse with long legs and heavy jaws. Imrael had always thought Jeff and Beryl quite large enough, but these hounds dwarfed them. The wolves had retreated to stand by Khazri, not quite cowering but cowed, their ears pinned back, their teeth bared. </p><p>But there was no attack. The hounds formed a tight circle around them, jostling and snarling at each other, backing up a little every time Jeff and Beryl snapped at them, only to press in again. </p><p>Then came the riders. There were twelve of them, tall women on tall horses, wearing flowing capes in all the colours of summer flowers, with spears and graceful bows in their hands. They wore no helmets but some wore crowns of flowers in their flowing hair and some wore the skulls of stags and wolves and bears. They pressed in behind the hounds, horses steaming and high stepping, spears lowered but not brought to bear.</p><p>Imrael licked dry lips. “Hello,” he said, trying to sound friendly and not terrified. He reached behind him and pressed Khazri’s arm until he lowered the bow. There was no chance they were fighting their way out of this. </p><p>“Good evening,” said the leading rider. Her horse was the biggest Imrael had ever seen, some twenty hands high, with a pale mane and a coat that gleamed with the oily shimmer of a fresh-peeled chestnut. It shifted beneath its rider, muscles bunching and coiling in its flanks, eager to return to the chase. </p><p>The rider herself wore a cloak of what was either cunningly worked silk or actual leaves the flaming orange of autumn. She was pale-skinned and her hair was a tawny brown shot through with gold. On her head was a crown of antlers and across her saddlehorn lay an unstrung bow taller than Khazri. </p><p>“You’re Zalach’anni, aren’t you?” she said, addressing him and not Imrael. “What’re you doing so far from home? And unveiled? Not that I don’t appreciate the view; they say the men of Zalach’ann shine like stars beneath the earth and I see there’s some truth to it.”</p><p>“We’re just two travellers,” said Imrael, as though what she’d just said was a perfectly appropriate thing to say to a stranger you’d accosted in the dead of night. He didn’t dare look at Khazri. “Ma’am. We’re on our way to Sanovar and we’re very sorry if we trespassed on your lands. Entirely accidental, I assure you. If you’d be willing to escort us out of your domain then we’d be very grateful.”</p><p>“But of course. I hate to see two fair young men journeying without any protection.” She spoke elven, the tongue of the high courts, slick and sibilant. Imrael only spoke it with his parents and was rustier than he’d like. It was probably the language Khazri had grown up with, but they never spoke it together.</p><p>“We were just- ” Imrael groped for a purpose that would satisfy whatever archaic notions of male ability she held. He settled on, “Visiting family! We’re on our way home now. Back to my mother’s house,” he said, with possibly undue pride and a sidelong glance at Khazri. Khazri wouldn’t look back. He stood very still, back straighter than Imrael had ever seen, ears set submissively low. He still held his bow and Imrael nudged him until he lowered it. </p><p>While Imrael had always been reckoned a prodigiously talented wizard by his human teachers, by elven standards he was decidedly average and the same was true of Khazri’s combat abilities. The speed that had made him so deadly against the human cultists of Milcom would be more than matched by these women, and they’d be better trained besides. They weren’t going to be fighting their way out of this.</p><p>“These lands are dangerous,” said another of the riders. This woman wore the skull of some hunting cat, a leopard judging by the spotted fur that trimmed her cloak.</p><p>“Surely not with bold warriors such as yourselves to keep them safe,” Imrael said more confidently, getting into the spirit of his role.</p><p>The leader seemed to like that. The corners of her mouth quirked up. “We do our best. These…dogs of yours?”</p><p>She couldn’t think the wolves - crouched at Khazri’s heels, their bellies to the ground - were dogs. Not when so many of her retinue wore cloaks of thick grey fur, but for the same reason, Imrael wasn’t inclined to argue. “For protection,” he said. “As you say, the road is dangerous. They’re very well trained.” Beryl, determined to make a liar of him as well, snarled. </p><p>“Far be it for me to deprive you of your pets,” she said, with another gracious smile. “I hope they can keep up. It’s too late for you to be out here alone. Come to my halls; I can’t imagine the promise of soft beds and baths is anything other than appealing to you.”</p><p>If this was a kidnapping, it was a very polite one. For all that he misliked her high handedness, Imrael’s back and aching feet felt that she’d made some solid points. </p><p>“Forgive us,” Khazri said, in his small, hoarse voice. “Our parents wouldn’t approve.”</p><p>It was a last-ditch effort. Imrael saw it, and so did the lead rider. She would take them either way, and the only question was whether they all maintained the polite fiction that they had a choice in the matter. “I’d be shocked if they did. Who lets a strange woman take them home?” she said, moving her piece to check. “I am Valdemar, Mistress of the Hunt, and now I am no stranger. And what may I call you?”</p><p>“Imrael Sovelin,” Imrael said because he didn’t see much point in lying about it. </p><p>“Kiru,” said Khazri, who clearly did. Imrael tried to keep his expression neutral and to remember to use the right name.</p><p>“Charmed.” Her eyes were the pale yellow of the flowers upon the gorse or a hunting hawk, and they stayed fixed upon Khazri.</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sitting on the back of a strange woman’s horse, arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Imrael evaluated his options. They really only consisted of keeping his seat or throwing himself from the horse and hoping he didn’t dash his brains out, which felt less like a choice with every great bone-shaking stride. He’d tried talking to the rider but she was either ignoring him or the rush of wind kept her from hearing. </p><p>The terrible thing was, some part of him had wanted this from the moment the headwoman mentioned the Hunt. Not because he had wanted an excuse to intervene, although he did, and not because of his irrepressible curiosity, which was sure to get him killed one day. </p><p>He wanted to meet elves. </p><p>There were elves in Ferris, of course. Some who’d been forced from their homes and some, like his parents, who’d fled them. Only a couple of hundred all told, enough so that the more insular of them could get along without ever interacting with a human. Khazri avoided them, especially those few Zalach’anni men and women whom Imrael had begged for stories in his youth. The realms of Faerie were his heritage, had shaped his parents, had given him more power than most human wizards would ever hold. He wanted to see them in truth and not through the thick, distorting glass of a story. </p><p>There was a dreamlike feel to the dark rush of ground, the rocking of the horse, the catching of the wind at his hair. Imrael dug the nails of one hand into the back of the other to check he was still awake and keep it that way. </p><p>Finally, the horses’ headlong rush slowed to a jouncing trot that left him in no doubt that he was conscious. A golden light clung to the hills, too thick and honeyed to be dawn. It seeped from a structure ahead of them that at first resembled nothing so much as the nest of a giant bird made out of stone, sat at the peak of a tall, bare hill. </p><p>Juts of living black rock had been called up into a palisade, ten feet high, striped green and yellow with lichen. Despite its roughness, Imrael would not, he was fairly sure, be able to climb it and nor would he be able to replicate Valdemar’s feat; as the hunt approached she raised her hand in a lazy gesture and with a groan the stone parted as neatly as a great set of doors to let them pass. It seemed to take her no effort at all, though a human battlemage might spend a lifetime training to accomplish something similar. Imrael, who had no talent at all with stone, would have had as much luck moving it with magic as with smashing his head against it. </p><p>The rocks surrounded and cradled the manor within like cupped palms, casting sharp shadows over its walls. The building itself was also formed from a vast piece of living rock, the exterior left rough and furred with moss, topped with natural spires and crenelations, with elegant verandas and colonnades coiled about it like vines. Thin rivulets of water crawled down its sides, silent, sleek and dark until they fell in pale, musical spray to fall into pools at the mansion’s feet.</p><p>It was easy, for a moment, for Imrael to forget that he was saddlesore and nervous and admire the austere beauty of the place. </p><p>The rider handed him down to a waiting groom and Imrael sagged against her before finding his feet. “Thanks,” he said, and then recoiled. She was human, with the same cloud of hair and freckles as Yen and Mara back at the tower. But where Mara had been thin as a post and just as weathered, this girl was plump and well-groomed. </p><p>“Roe?” he tried. That was the name Mara had given him. </p><p>She smiled politely - he couldn’t tell if it was recognition or confusion in her eyes. He squinted at her, trying to see if there were any threads of enchantment wrapped around her mind, but the whole courtyard was lit up with so much magic his eyes started to water and he had to look away.</p><p>Some of the Hunt had already handed off their horses and headed away about their own business, but some lingered, watching Imrael with assessing eyes.  </p><p>He looked about for Khazri, who slid from Valdemar’s saddle before anyone could stop him and stood warily in the centre of the courtyard. Her horse stretched its neck around to nose at his hair and Khazri petted it absently, eyes scanning the courtyard, searching the house for blindspots, the palisade for handholds. </p><p>“She likes you,” Valdemar said as though it proved something, and then a frown scudded across her face. “Where are your dogs?”</p><p>Khazri blinked guilelessly. “Didn’t keep up.”</p><p>It was half a relief that he’d asked them to leave - Imrael knew Khazri well enough that he was certain that’s what he’d done - and half a source of greater fear. They were unpredictable, especially when they or Khazri were angry or afraid, but they were friends and in a place like this, jaws that could crack bone would have been a great comfort.</p><p>“I’ll send my grooms to look for them,” she said and turned towards the house. “This way.”</p><p>Together they followed Valdemar across the courtyard. The moss that carpeted it extended inside, plush and soft under their boots. Probably under some enchantment to keep it from tearing, and Imrael made a mental note to poke at it later. The interior walls had been polished so smoothly that it felt like cool silk against the skin. Very hard silk, pale silver shot through with veins of white and black, sequined with bright flecks of red. </p><p>The naked stone would have been ornament enough, but the walls were lined with tapestries; hunting scenes for the most part, gorgeously vibrant and enchanted so that the women and beasts within them moved, lunging and snapping at each other sending scarlet threads of blood spurting across woven greensward. </p><p>“It’s a beautiful house,” Imrael said quite honestly.</p><p>“The Spur has been in my family for a thousand thousand years,” Valdemar said with evident pride and very little truth, judging by the weathering.</p><p>A man was waiting for them at the far end of the entrance hall, and Valdemar caught him about the waist and put her mouth to his ear. For a moment Imrael hoped he was her husband and they wouldn’t have to worry about putting off advances, but then she said, “This is my dear brother Rysserova, master of the household.” </p><p>Rysserova was as tall as his sister but slimmer, with the kind of perfectly sculpted face that could only be achieved through magic. “Be welcome,” he said in a low, musical voice. “Would you like to rest before dinner? I’ll have baths prepared.”</p><p>“Is that a hint?” Imrael said and Rysserova curled his lip in what was either disdain or amused agreement. “Yes, a bath would be wonderful.” Food and a bed were more tempting prospects, but better not to go against their captors needlessly just yet. </p><p>“More than a bath needed here, I think,” said Rysserova, stepping closer to Khazri. With an obvious effort, Khazri didn’t flinch or pull away when the man grabbed one bluntly cropped lock between two fingers, but his ears flattened.</p><p>“Come with me,” Rysserova said, hand falling from Khazri’s hair to his shoulder. “Your friend can follow Three.” A young man wearing the same yellow livery and vacant stare as the groom stood unobtrusively off to the side and stepped forwards at a snap of his fingers. </p><p>“I’ll leave the three of you to discuss manly things.” Evidently satisfied, Valdemar gave her brother a nod, her guests a bow, and walked away, boots clacking on the stone floor.</p><p>As her footsteps faded, Imrael set his feet, ready to follow if Khazri took the opportunity to run. But Khazri threw one unreadable look over his shoulder, and then followed him away into another of the passages honeycombing the smooth grey rock.</p><p>All Imrael could do was follow Three, patiently waiting by the mouth of another corridor. </p><p>“Hey?” Imrael whispered when he was sure they weren’t being followed. “Can you understand me?” he said, switching from Elven to the Harrad that was spoken in Ferris and Greywatch, and was at least a second language to most of the continent. </p><p>The man spun smartly on his heels to face him. “Yes, sir,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. </p><p>Imrael leaned down so their faces weren’t so far apart, worried this would come across as patronising, then worried that the man no longer had the capacity to feel patronised. “What’s your name? Mine’s Imrael - you don’t need to call me ‘sir’.”</p><p>“It pleases the ladies and lords of the Spur to call me Three, Imrael.” In Greywatch their words were round, dropping from their mouths like stones skipping across a pond. This man spoke like Valdemar, Khazri and the Zalach’anni Imrael had known in Ferris, in the smooth hissing rush of a stream. “We prefer to keep our names to ourselves.”</p><p>Which neatly cut off that line of enquiry. “How long have you been here?” Imrael tried.</p><p>Three frowned a moment and then his brow smoothed out. “A few years. The time goes by so very quickly.”</p><p>“Did the Hunt take you from Greywatch? Or somewhere else? I can’t promise we can get you out but if there’s a message you want passed on to your family - ”</p><p>“No, not at all. No one stole me, and I have no messages to pass on. The Lady Valdemar offered me a better life here than I’d ever have had - if you’ll excuse the expression - shovelling sheep shit in a hovel in some backwater village. It is an honour to serve. I ask for nothing else.”</p><p>“So you’re happy?”</p><p>“Yes. This is a wonderful place. I think you’ll be happy here too.” When Imrael was too baffled to follow up with another question, he turned and continued down the hall. </p><p>The rooms the man showed him to were gorgeous, the finest he’d ever been in. They were vast, one wall opening up onto a balcony framed with heavy embroidered hangings. From here he could see over the palisade to the rolling plains and sharp-topped hills that made up Valdemar’s hunting grounds. He thought he saw the thin finger of Greywatch and the smoke of other human settlements, too far to help. The bed was as vast as the landscape, a cushion-studded thing that Imrael dared not approach for fear of being engulfed, though the thick-piled carpet beneath his feet was barely safer. </p><p>One of the waterfalls he’d noticed outside poured through a gap in the ceiling to fill a clear, deep pool. There was an enchantment on it - common in the bathhouses of Ferris - that kept the water steaming hot, and he couldn’t suppress a sigh of longing when he dipped his fingers into the water. Too long on the road, bathing in streams when he got a chance to bathe at all. He considered and discarded not using it in protest; he’d suffer more than they. </p><p>Three lurked as though he intended to help until Imrael herded him away to go sit down. He doubted the man got much opportunity for it. </p><p>The water was the perfect temperature - so hot it made his skin tingle with a pleasure that bordered on agony. He let himself float, eyes closed, trying not to dwell on how quickly and completely things had spiralled out of control. He was going to have to think of a way to convince Valdemar to free Roe and all the rest, if they weren’t here of their own wills, but as kidnappings went this wasn’t so bad. He washed with a soap that smelled of vervain and brushed his hair dry watching the sun rise over the courtyard. </p><p>He had some idea of familiarising himself with the movements of the household, but he wasn’t a soldier or a spy and he couldn’t read much of anything from the bustle. By the time his hair was dry, he’d learned there were at least five human servants, which was useful, and that Valdemar spent an inordinate amount of time roughhousing with her dogs, which wasn’t.</p><p>When he stepped back into the room, Three was setting out clothes for him; silk in shimmering blues and purples that were impossible to obtain without enchantment or a lot of dead molluscs. Drifting diaphanous sleeves of the kind he never wore; too easy to let them drag through the soup or someone’s viscera. There was jewellery too - earrings, bracelets, hair ornaments carved from wood varnished so that they shone gold and black and deep ruby red. In other circumstances, he would have been very pleased to wear it all, but despite Three’s assurances, he was still deeply uneasy. </p><p>As he was putting the finishing touches to his hair - he’d braided it to show willing but left the jewelled pins and combs in their box - someone scratched at the door. </p><p>Imrael hesitated to answer, wondering if whoever was on the other side would keep up the pretence they needed his permission to enter. When the door stayed closed, curiosity got the better of him and he called, “Come in!”</p><p>It was Khazri, though it took a long confusing moment for Imrael to realise it. The whole year that Imrael had known him, he’d dressed in dirty greys and muddy browns, to match his hair and eyes. In black silk, worn beneath an embroidered jacket of scarlet samite, his eyes were a red so startling they almost seemed to glow. Black kohl added to the effect, and they’d powdered his pale face paler. His hair, trimmed and brushed to sleekness, was a soft cloud grey, startlingly close to white.</p><p>It was, Imrael realised, perhaps what he would have looked like if he’d never left Zalach’ann. That or a corpse. </p><p>In other circumstances, the effect might have been appealing but Khazri’s expression - that of a fox about to chew its own leg off to escape a snare - made it seem grotesque. Imrael bit his lip against a burst of horrified laughter.</p><p>“You look,” he began and didn’t know how to end. A compliment would be the last thing Khazri wanted, and he was sure their host would furnish them with plenty. “Different?” he said uncertainly. </p><p>Khazri’s lip curled, less an expression of derision than that of a wolf about to bite. “You can laugh.”</p><p>“You look nice. Truly. Red is a good colour on you.” </p><p>“The brother was insistent.” </p><p>Imrael clapped his shoulder bracingly. “We’ll get through this dinner, and tomorrow we’ll be on our way. This will be an amusing anecdote in a week’s time.” He let his hand slide up to cup the back of Khazri’s skull and feel the new softness of his hair. “Still got some knives squirrelled away?”</p><p>Khazri flicked his eyes to the corner where ‘Three’ stood, waiting for their orders.</p><p>It took a moment for Imrael to grasp his meaning, and then it hit him like a slap. “Could you wait outside please?” he asked the man. “We’ll be out shortly.”</p><p>Luckily, because Imrael wasn’t sure what he’d do if Three refused, the man only smiled, bowed, and drifted silently out of the room.</p><p>“You think he’d spy on us?” Imrael hissed when the door had closed behind him.</p><p>“If they make him.” Maybe it was the weight of the earrings Rysserova had pinned to them, but his ears had never been lower. </p><p>“I don’t know what to do. I tried to talk to him, and he said he was happy here. Do you think that’s true? He doesn’t sound like he’s enchanted, but maybe it’s just a more powerful spell than I’m used to - that wouldn’t be surprising, <em> look </em> at this place - and everyone at Greywatch was so upset, I can’t imagine why they’d lie. But they say the Summer Court only takes on willing servants and I don’t want to come in here and start telling people how to live their lives when that’s the whole thing I want to stop!”</p><p>The drape of silk sleeves hid the gesture, but a hand brushed his, rough with calluses that no amount of grooming had managed to smooth away. Khazri twined their fingers together for a moment and then the touch was gone as quickly as it had come. “Breathe.”</p><p>“Yes, thank you. What do you think?”</p><p>“I’m biased. This is just like...Zalach’ann.” The hesitation, Imrael realised, was because he’d almost said something else. Khazri’s eyes flicked over to a vase of flowers that stood upon the dressing table. At first, Imrael had thought them beautiful but scentless, until he’d looked close enough to realise they were all stone. Each petal and stamen perfectly worked in lapis and jasper and jade. “The decoration. The clothes. The way she speaks to us. It's like being back there. I hate it.”</p><p>“If we see any spiders, we are gone,” Imrael promised. “Until then, I think we should play along with them. They might be regular eccentric rich folks and it’s all a big misunderstanding we can help clear up.” </p><p>“They kidnapped us.”</p><p>“They’re probably bored. My parents have press-ganged people into dinner parties before, and they don’t live on a hill in the middle of nowhere. We make polite conversation, give them whatever news we have, and they’ll probably be happy to let us leave.”</p><p>Said like that, it did sound pathetically, naively optimistic. Khazri lived his life balancing on the knife-edge of fear, always on the verge of fight or flight. But once he’d decided to do something there was little that could put him off, not even his own pessimism; if he wasn’t recklessly brave, he was resignedly so. </p><p>Imrael couldn’t live like that. He needed his comforting delusions, his conviction that everything would ultimately work out for the best to keep going. Most of the time, he thought their temperaments balanced each other nicely, but the moments when they didn’t tended to coincide with horrible danger. </p><p>Which was as good as admitting that Khazri was right. </p><p>“What do we do?” he said helplessly. </p><p>“Dinner,” said Khazri.</p><hr/><p>The dining hall that Three showed them into was the most elaborate room yet, large enough to host an army, at the great central table, with five hearths along the west wall giving out a great heat. They were necessary for the east wall was open to the stars, shining coldly over the moon-silvered moors. </p><p>Despite the immense size of room and table both, there were only a score of people seated for the meal - Valdemar, her hunters, her brother and what Imrael assumed was an assortment of husbands in colourful silks. There were two empty places at the head beside her and, reluctantly, Imrael and Khazri took their seats. </p><p>“You have a lovely home,” Imrael said, fussing with his napkin. “Very large. Pointy.”</p><p>“And you have a lovely face,” said Valdemar, turning her full attention on Imrael. He hoped rather dismally that the long, roving stare was her scrutinising his body beneath the silks and not noticing the insult in his bare wrists and undressed hair. Whether she noticed or not, her eyes slid back to Khazri as though drawn by a lodestone. “Who would have thought two ragged wanderers would clean up so nicely?” she said eventually. </p><p>Imrael liked to flirt. He liked it when women - and men - looked at him with appreciation and maybe a little speculation. It was hard to put his finger on why, exactly, Valdemar’s compliment was so unpleasant. Perhaps because she smiled like there was a joke behind it that he wasn’t party to. </p><p>“Your brother was very gracious,” he said, nodding to Rysserova. “I assume these are his clothes?”</p><p>The siblings exchanged a look. “Our father’s. He’s sadly no longer with us.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m so sorry. What happened?”</p><p>“It is a sad story, not fit for dinner.” She snapped her fingers and the servants began filing in with platters. “Now, I’d be very glad to hear more about your journey. We’re very out of the way here, and get precious little news.”</p><p>“I’m not sure what I can tell you that will be of interest. The council will be appointing a new Steward, and there’s all the usual backstabbing and bribery that goes with it, but when we left, everyone was fairly sure it would be Jani Havislock. I’m not sure how much you know - she’s the safe choice. Old family, conservative, no one loves her but no one hates her either - ”</p><p>Valdemar laughed, not unkindly. “I’m sorry, I meant news of our own people. While I’m sure mortal affairs are of great interest to mortals, I can no more keep track of them than I can those of mayflies and katydids. What of Zalach’ann?”</p><p>“Ah. Well, we’re taking the most direct route from Ferris to Sanovar to visit my- my mother’s sister,” Imrael invented furiously. There seemed to be little need to hide that they were on their way to interrogate a strange god, but Imrael was drunk on secrecy and had just taken a generous drink of the dark, bitter wine they’d been served. “She’s just had her first child and her husband needs the help. So that’s some very specific news of our people. But if you want news from Zalach’ann, I’m afraid I've never actually been. We <em> were </em> just at the temple of Iontar of the Wheel - but it’s been in ruins for three hundred years, so I suppose that’s the opposite of news.”</p><p>“And what about your friend?” She was looking at Khazri again. “You’re very quiet.”</p><p>“Kh-iru is like that.” Imrael silently cursed his tripping tongue. “Don’t worry, I talk enough for the both of us.”</p><p>“What a charming pair you make,” said Rysserova. “Have you known each other long?”</p><p>“Not long,” said Khazri. “We met on the road. I’m a novice. Of Arteru.”</p><p>The suspicious slant to Rysserova’s features eased and Valdemar clapped in delight. “Ah! I have to admit, I was wondering what a nice boy like you was doing wandering the surface armed and alone. Is this your initiation?”</p><p>Khazri nodded. </p><p>“Have you found your quarry yet?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“We must see what we can do to accommodate you. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, we are a household very keen on hunting, and the moors are haunted by any number of worthy beasts. Your only trouble will be making sure you find it first. We could make a contest of it!” </p><p>Arteru was the god of the hunt and the hunted, the least popular of Zalach’ann’s gods but the one Khazri professed to feel the least antipathy towards. The texts Imrael had read at university claimed Arteru’s priests would hunt the most dangerous quarry they could find, playing the part of hunter and prey both. </p><p>“Though it hardly seems fair,” put in one of the women at the table. She was slim with a cap of dark hair cropped even shorter than Khazri’s and a jacket trimmed in fox fur to match her vulpine smirk. “Them riding out with all their spears and horses while you go about things the traditional way.” </p><p>According to the books, Arteru's priests hunted alone and naked, armed with a single knife. There had been some very intriguing woodcuts. Khazri had later confirmed this was mostly true, except the picture on page thirty-four of <em> Esoteric and Exotic Worshippe </em> which was ‘weird’ and ‘probably not possible but we can try’.</p><p>“Having another priest here, even a novice, is a great pleasure,” said Valdemar. “We keep our mother’s customs as best we can in our lonely house, but we have only Jacith - '' she indicated a plump Zalach’anni woman with a smattering of freckles across her pale face. “Who is not, perhaps, the most dedicated of our Lady’s servants.”</p><p>“I swear she has the temple dusted,” said Rysserova, and it took Imrael a moment to parse the joke even as everyone around the table laughed. “There are hardly <em> any </em> webs.”</p><p>“Never the temple,” said Jacith cheerfully. “But I am not above trapping our Lady’s servants under a cup if she sends them somewhere inconvenient. I’ll show you around tomorrow.”</p><p>Though he managed to mumble a “thank you,” Khazri’s discomfort was palpable.</p><p>“Forgive me if this is another insensitive question,” Imrael said, partly to steer the conversation out of dangerous waters, and partly from genuine nosiness. “But why <em> are </em> you and your household doing so far from Zalach’ann?” </p><p>“Our mother was a lady of that city,” said Rysserova. It had been less obvious on the sister’s tanned and strong-jawed face, but the resemblance between he and Khazri was marked; they had the same wide-set eyes and skin as pale as birch bark. While the fox-faced woman was clearly surface-born, many of the hunters that sat around them had the almost luminescent pallor Imrael had come to associate with the City of Spiders. “And our father was of the Summer Court. This is his family home.”</p><p>He might have said more, but Valdemar interrupted. “Is the food to your liking? My cook isn’t Zalach’anni but she does her best.” Another story too sad for dinner, Imrael supposed, and filed it away for future snooping. </p><p>The jewel-bright birds they’d seen flitting through the gorse had reappeared, roasted and then sewn back into their skins, along with a hippogriff, its bird half stuffed with lemons and sage, its horse half roasted with brandy and wild garlic, and the fried heads of mandrake, served on a peppery salad of their leaves. The latter presented an interesting quandary for a vegetarian, but even the bread and non-sentient vegetables were very good. </p><p>“It’s excellent,” said Imrael, though she’d clearly been addressing Khazri. </p><p>The only thing on Khazri’s plate were long strips of something grey, gelatinous and fungal looking that Imrael had tactfully passed over. “It’s good,” he said quietly, and Valdemar beamed at him. </p><p>“It is strange,” she said, “To be homesick for a place I’ve never seen. I dream of Zalach’ann, of its food and people, its libraries and temples and coliseums, its quiet, shadowed streets. Sometimes I wonder if I’m dreaming of the city at all, or if it’s merely something I’ve built myself from the remnants of my mother’s stories. Do you miss it?”</p><p>Khazri set down his fork. “There was a stand outside the temple, and their fried dough was always too greasy, but my cousins would insist we went there every week. Then they’d fight over who had to pay.” He hesitated. “I miss them. And I miss the quiet. It’s never quiet up here.”</p><p>He was a better liar than Imrael had thought.</p><p>“My mother used to say that,” Valdemar said. There had been something almost gloating in the way she looked at him all evening, but now her face had softened. She raised her glass. “To finding home,” she said. </p><p>Imrael joined the toast, though the exchange left him more discomforted than ever. After that, he chattered on artlessly throughout the dinner, engaging his brain only to ensure he didn’t let slip anything incriminating about who they really were. </p><p>At his side, Khazri was all but silent. It was an arrangement they’d gradually settled into, one they were both very satisfied with. Most people took the hint - or found Khazri unsettling enough that they weren’t inclined to attempt conversation anyway. </p><p>But throughout the meal, Valdemar watched him and every time Imrael’s torrent of conversation dried up, she’d direct a comment or compliment his way. Perhaps she was a polite hostess. But they were being served by a man she’d named ‘Three’, and Khazri twitched every time she looked at him, so Imrael wasn’t inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.  </p><p>When it became increasingly clear she wasn’t going to stop of her own accord, he switched from inanity to flirtation. Delicately at first and then shamelessly enough that her brother coloured and began shooting him furious glares. Part of him wanted to be as disagreeable enough that Valdemar would want them gone by first light, but there were the thralls to consider. And the food <em> was </em> very good.</p><p>Luckily, they and the other men weren’t expected to stay past dessert. In Port Ferris, Imrael would have ignored the stares and helped himself to brandy and a seat anyway, and might even have done it here out of sheer bloodymindedness, but Khazri bowed, mumbled a good night and all but dragged Imrael from the room. </p><p>Maybe it was suspicious that they went back to Imrael’s room together, but he didn’t have the energy to care. Together they shoved a desk in front of the door. “Why is she so obsessed with you?” Imrael hissed, sitting down on it as Khazri scurried across the room to check for spies behind the curtains.</p><p>“Jealous?” It had clearly been meant as a joke but it came out thin and strained. </p><p>“Of course not!” Imrael said, flopping down onto the bed. “It was grotesque. I did my best to divert her - ”</p><p>“You did everything but strip,” Khazri said from somewhere out of sight. The words were followed by the soft rustle of cloth. </p><p>The bed was too soft and Imrael could barely raise his head to see where he’d gone. “Jealous?”</p><p>“Grateful.” The mattress dipped as Khazri crawled up next to him and sat with his knees clutched to his chest. He’d stripped himself, down to his undershirt. More silk, in the stark black that made him look like the distant lord of a sunken city, and not a quiet boy with a dry sense of humour and an odd taste in pets. </p><p>“You’re welcome,” Imrael told him. “For all the good it did.”</p><p>“She’s not attracted to me. There’s something else.” </p><p>It was strange, seeing other Zalach’anni, thinking of Khazri as part and product of a culture, and not as someone entirely unique. Imrael sat up with some little difficulty, and combed his fingers through Khazri’s hair until it was the fluffy mess it usually was. “I think you’re underestimating your own appeal,” he said, letting his hand drift down to cup Khazri’s cheek. “But she <em> did </em>keep bringing up Zalach’ann. You’re right, there’s something strange going on there.”</p><p>“Maybe.” </p><p>“I don’t know why anyone who got out of that hell pit would be so obsessed with recreating it. The food, the <em> priest </em>- ” </p><p>Abruptly, Khazri pulled away. “You wouldn’t,” he said. </p><p>“Are you saying you miss that?” Imrael asked, incredulous. “They tried to sacrifice you to their awful god. They treat people like objects, they treat <em> us </em> like we’re incompetent.”</p><p>“‘They’?” Khazri echoed. “<em> I’m </em> Zalach’anni.”</p><p>Imrael opened his mouth and then closed it again before he could say something - something <em> entirely reasonable </em> - that Khazri wouldn’t forgive. “Alright, alright, I understand,” he said, holding up his hands. He didn’t, particularly, but he didn’t want to fight. Before it was a city state, Port Ferris had been a fishing village, and then a tradepost, importing goods, culture, and citizens. Patriotism was considered gauche; it was a city its people were proud not to be proud of. If Imrael felt stronger about it than Jatt Hari, it was because he felt nothing at all for his parents’ homeland. How Khazri could feel anything at all for the cesspool he’d crawled out of was beyond him. “Sleep here?” he said, grabbing a handful of Khazri’s shirt. The silk was slippery, like grabbing hold of the night. </p><p>“They’ll notice.” </p><p>They hadn’t discussed whether they needed to keep that secret, but if Khazri felt the need to hide his own name, Imrael didn’t doubt he’d want to hide that they were lovers. </p><p>“I told her I was protecting your virtue. She’ll think we’re being prudish.”</p><p>Khazri laughed.</p><p>Ultimately, they <em> were </em> prudish. Exhaustion, fear, and being watched by the hundreds of blinking eyes stitched into the tapestries very little for the libido. They also did little to help him sleep. Imrael lay awake too many hours, watching rabbits run through embroidered bracken, chased endlessly by the hounds.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The insistent prodding of dawn’s fingers woke Imrael from an uneasy doze. Tiredness pressed down on his eyelids, but he dragged them up and himself out of bed and wandered over to the mirror to comb the sleepy tangles from his hair. One of the tapestry rabbits groomed its own long ears in imitation. </p><p>Khazri slept through most of it, curled up on his side atop the bedclothes, shirt crumpled under him. It wasn’t until Imrael set the comb down and went over to poke him that he stirred. “Khazri. <em> Khazri</em>.”</p><p>Khazri drew himself into a tighter ball and then gave in and sat up. “<em>Kiru</em>.”</p><p>“Sorry. Sleep well?”</p><p>“No.” The remains of his makeup from the day before were still smudged across his face, but beneath it, there were clear dark rings under his eyes. “You?”</p><p>“Horribly. Today, we’ll get to the bottom of what’s going on here. If we can’t, we leave. I don’t care how comfortable the bed is, I’m not staying another night. Agreed?”</p><p>A nod. </p><p>Imrael had a vague hope that someone would bring them breakfast so they wouldn’t have to face the rest of the household and an equally vague sense of guilt for expecting what was probably a slave to bring it to him. When no food materialised, and Khazri had had time to wash his face and slink back to his own room to change, he resigned himself to doing what he’d already resolved to do and headed down to the dining hall with Khazri following in his shadow. </p><p>There were covered dishes set out on the sideboard, and a couple of Valdemar’s hunters loafing around, yawning and picking at them. Roe stood in attendance, perfectly turned out, a smile upon her face that turned puzzled when Imrael greeted her. </p><p>“Ah!” cried Valdemar, striding into the room with an energy Imrael found obscene so early in the morning. “Enjoying my hospitality?”</p><p>“Oh very much so. We’ve been on the road so long, the respite is much appreciated,” Imrael said, trying to sound appropriately effusive. “It’s regrettable we can’t stay longer.”</p><p>Valdemar waved her hand to dismiss his words. “I wish I could offer more than respite, but there’s little company here and no great revelry.” She snatched a sweet roll from one of the platters and bit into it. “The hunting is excellent, though. There is rumour of a wyvern in the hills and I intend to have its head upon my walls by morning. Have you ever seen a wyvern?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Khazri.</p><p>“I watched a dissection a few years ago,” Imrael told her. </p><p>Those clearly weren't the answers Valdemar had been expecting, but she rallied well. “A most frightening sight, I know. Claws and fangs and a venomous sting, all the worst parts of a bat, a snake and a scorpion. Were you afraid?” </p><p>“No.” Knowing Khazri, he’d either killed it or befriended it. </p><p>She smiled indulgently. “I shouldn’t be surprised when you’re looking to hunt such a beast. Perhaps you should come with us! I’m sure we’d all be safer accompanied by a man of such valour.” Sniggers from the women sat around the table, but she ignored them. “Do you ride, Kiru?”</p><p>“A little.”</p><p>“My Speedwell would be glad to bear you, I’m sure. She’s a gentle beast but runs smooth as the wind across the grass. Do you ride, Master Imrael?” </p><p>“Like a sack of potatoes, albeit an enthusiastic one,” he told her. “So perhaps another time. We really must be off.”</p><p>“Oh, I won’t hear of it!” said Valdemar. “Kiru simply must come hunting, I’d be failing as a host if he did not..”</p><p>Looking less hunting than hunted, Khazri shot Imrael a sidelong look; waiting for Imrael to talk them out of it, no doubt. But Imrael looked again to Roe, and found himself saying, “That’s very kind.” With everyone gone, it would be just Imrael and the servants, and there would never be a better time to find out if they were enchanted.</p><p>“Excellent, let us be off!” Valdemar cried, leaping to her feet. “Ryss, entertain Master Imrael until we return.”</p><p>Only the servants and the master of the house, who didn’t seem overly fond of Imrael. </p><p>The hunters straggled to their feet behind her, setting aside goblets and calling to servants. Khazri shared a glance with Imrael and then slipped from the room after them. Too much a wolf not to revel, just a little, in the thought of a hunt, whatever the circumstances.</p><p>The thralls moved fast. The courtyard, when they reached it, bustled like an anthill overturned, horses being tacked up and hunters running to and fro with bows and horns and spears. </p><p>The steed Valdemar had chosen for Khazri was a sturdy, placid grey mare. He took a minute to stroke her nose and then he slipped up into the saddle before anyone could try to help him mount. </p><p>Valdemar beamed at him and kicked her horse into a trot. </p><p>The hunt rode out. </p><p>Khazri looked back once, eyes dark in his pale face, and then he was gone.</p><p>The moment the quiet had settled back over the courtyard, Rysserova took Imrael by the elbow. “Do you sew?” </p><p>“I assume you don’t mean sutures? No. But I’d love to learn!” It wasn’t even a lie. The subtle illusions woven into those tapestries were nothing close to the magic Imrael was skilled in but they were fascinating and Imrael never passed up the opportunity to learn something new. “Are the tapestries all yours? They’re beautiful.” </p><p>“Thank you,” Rysserova said with a gracious smile. There was something behind it, Imrael thought, but he had no idea what. “I’m sure, well-travelled as you are, you’ll find things very quiet here. We’re a small household.” Well-travelled sounded almost a jibe in his mouth. </p><p>“I did wonder about that,” Imrael said blithely. “The quiet must be nice, but I can imagine it gets a little oppressive.”</p><p>“I never cared much for society, even when my mother troubled herself with making us a part of it. But that was a long time ago.” He steered Imrael into a small, bright sitting room - which was still bigger than his parents’ home in Ferris. It looked out over a courtyard housing a still pool and a garden of crystals jutting from the rocky floor. There were skeins of thread laid out upon a table, and several of the men from last night bent over embroidery hoops, quietly chatting. </p><p>“The Summer Court is close, isn’t it?” Imrael said, taking a seat. “Relatively speaking.”</p><p>“Not as close as you’d think.” Rysserova sat and took up a half-finished piece of stitchwork. “My sister has a temper and the Summer Queen has roused it. Tell me about Ferris.”</p><p>“Ferris?” Imrael parroted. “Your sister wasn’t keen to talk about it.”</p><p>“My sister’s concerns aren’t mine.” The needle was a flash of silver between his fingers, darting into a unicorn’s unfinished eye. “Is it true that in Ferris anyone - woman or man, human or faerie or beast - can become Steward?”</p><p>“Ferris likes to consider itself a place where anyone can do anything if they work at it. Of course, it helps to be a woman, to be Harradir, and to be rich. But in theory, certainly.” </p><p>No one with fae blood would ever hold high office in Ferris. Not when rumours of enchantment dogged the steps of the University’s few elven Masters. Not when giggling teens begged his father for love charms one moment and cursed him for a witch the next. Not when the outer provinces of Harrad held places like Greywatch and places like this. </p><p>Magic came so easily to elves, you didn’t know when one had swayed you with an argument and when one had charmed your agreement out of you. Imrael was as guilty of holding those suspicions as he was of easing his way with enchantment. He remembered with a sudden pang of guilt how quick he’d been to use it in Greywatch. It had been safer for him, and easier, but wasn’t that the point?</p><p>He picked a spare hoop from the table and despondently stabbed at it with the needle. “How do you do the trick with the animals?”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” Rysserova said, his ears flicking up in pleasure. “It’s easy to cast an illusion of movement over the tapestry once it is finished. But this is more interesting. And more useful. Watch.” He moved his own needle more slowly, so that Imrael could see him slide it through a loop of magic, securing it to the backing with one neat stitch.  </p><p>Imrael tried to copy him and managed, after poking several holes in the cloth and one in his thumb, to successfully mimic the movement. The artistry of it complicated things but it was surprisingly close to the technique Imrael used for closing wounds. “Who taught you how to do this?”</p><p>“This is not Zalach’ann, or your city of human scholars.” Rysserova spread his hands to indicate the small, sunny sitting room, the still pool. “We make what we can from what our parents left us.”</p><p>The jabs were unveiled now but so too was the reason behind them. Not disdain but jealousy. “Have you never thought of travelling?” Imrael asked him. “If you wanted to see Ferris or Sanovar then Kiru and I would be glad to take you with us.” That was a lie - Khazri would be furious and Imrael wasn’t exactly keen himself - but Imrael couldn’t help himself. If only because he was desperate to know what the answer would be.  </p><p>Rysserova paused in his stitching. Beneath his needle, the unicorn blinked. “You are a very different sort of man to me,” he said. There was that same double-edged quality to the statement; Imrael wasn’t sure if it was meant as an insult or a compliment, and wasn’t certain that Rysserova knew himself. </p><p>“If you’re so interested in human matters, why don’t you ask your servants?” Imrael said, feeling very proud of himself. It felt like the kind of twisty, roundabout approach to the thrall problem that was only proper for a man undercover in an elven court.</p><p>“It’s not my business to pry into their lives,” Rysserova said, and Imrael warmed to him until he spoilt it by adding, “And however fascinating I might find the flight of mayflies, I wouldn’t have one over for dinner.”</p><p>“If the mayfly could talk, I certainly would,” Imrael said. He wondered if the callousness came with the years. When all the women and men that he’d grown up with, studied with, bickered with and loved were years dead, what would be left of him? “The servants do seem very happy to be working here.”</p><p>“Dull as the Spur is, I imagine it’s preferable to wherever they come from.”</p><p>“But they can go back there? If they want?”</p><p>“Why does it matter?” Rysserova said, puzzlement verging on irritation. “Who cares about the thralls. Tell me about yourself. We’re desperately starved for gossip. Tell me.” He leaned in. “Are you betrothed?” </p><p>“Yes,” Imrael said, drunk on spycraft. “Our parents have made the proper arrangements, but she’s- she’s just been made the Stormwatch on a merchant ship, and she wants to complete her first voyage before we marry, to prove she can provide for me properly. Her name is Mikara.”</p><p>He was surprised at how avidly Rysserova seemed to listen to his rambling account of an imaginary courtship. As starved for gossip as he claimed, or trying to find holes in the story? Good luck to him - Mikara was everything he claimed she was, except for his betrothed, and their parents had threatened them with as much when her mother caught them fumbling behind a lifeboat Mikara was meant to be caulking. </p><p>It was a fiddly business, stitching the enchantment to the cloth and picking out a figure as well. The wolf that took shape beneath his needle looked more like an elephant than Jeff and Beryl. It wagged its nose at him in aggrievement when Imrael put it aside and excused himself citing a headache from too much fine stitching.</p><p>Standing on a graceful veranda, Imrael dug his slippered toes into the moss in suppressed annoyance. He wasn’t sure whether to pity a curious mind rotting away in this stone shell, or despise a parasitic creature too self-absorbed to even take note of the harm it was doing. </p><p>He wasn’t sure if he was even irritated by the callousness, or by being seen as a curiosity. It was easy to ignore stares and insensitive questions about his ears in backwater villages. But even when people were hostile there was - and this was an uncomfortable thought - always an edge of awe to it. Being treated as an uncivilised amusement was more unpleasant than he’d expected. </p><p>Well, the sooner he worked out how to help the thralls, the better. He set off in a random direction, hoping to stumble upon the kitchen or somewhere else he’d be able to talk to the servants unobserved. </p><p>Instead, he found the library which would have been vastly preferable in any other circumstances. The fox-faced woman from dinner was inside, sat with her feet up on a reading desk. She raised an eyebrow at him and slung her legs down to the floor. “Hello,” she said, lips drawing up into a smirk that bared her teeth.  </p><p>“Hello. I thought you were going on the hunt.”</p><p>“I prefer the company of taxidermy beasts. They’re usually less inclined to bite.” She waved her hand at the stuffed animals, which seemed to outnumber the books; glass-eyed birds, griffons, martins, bears. “I go by Campion. Another guest of the Master of the Hunt.”</p><p>Imrael had been about to make his excuses - she seemed, if anything, less pleasant than Rysserova - but there was a curious edge to her voice that made him pause. “Oh? Have you been here long?” he asked, drawing up a chair. Some people collected secrets to hoard, some spent them like coin, and some gave them away for the pleasure of it, revelling in knowing something you did not. He took Campion for the latter type. </p><p>“Time passes so delightfully swiftly here, who is to say?”</p><p>“The sun is usually a reliable indicator.”</p><p>Her smile widened. “You’re very forthright.”</p><p>Imrael folded his arms. “If you say ‘for a man’, I’ll kick you.”</p><p>“<em> That </em> would be forthright coming from anyone, I should think.” </p><p>She had the same brittle, sharp-edged intensity to her that had drawn him to Khazri and Eshe and a hundred other ill-advised entanglements, and he’d fallen into flirting almost without realising it. If he’d been single, and hadn’t been wary of the ideas they likely held here about men who slept around, he might have made a move. “I don’t think it’s especially forthright to object to condescension,” he said, keeping his voice cool. “What brought you to the Spur?”</p><p>Still seated, Campion. sketched him a bow. “I am a sworn knight of the Queen of Summer.” There was indeed a long, slender sword hanging from her belt where most of Valdemar’s folk carried wicked hunting knives. “I was an escort to her nephew when he was brought here to wed the former lady of the Spur. That would be Valdemar’s mother.”</p><p>“What happened to him?”</p><p>“A hunting accident, same as his wife. They’re awfully common here,” Campion said with a sardonic tip of her head. No wonder she preferred the books. </p><p>Imrael’s pulse spiked at the implication. “Kh- Kiru’s hunting with her now.”</p><p>“I doubt he’s in any danger. Not yet, anyway. Not until she has what she wants from him.”</p><p>“And what <em> does </em> she want with him?” Imrael said, with a sudden stab of anxiety. He’d noted the way she looked at Khazri, but surely the same nonsense about protecting them she’d leveraged to bring them here would keep her from doing anything to harm him. </p><p>“Your poor little friend is Zalach’anni, yes? So was Valdemar’s mother, until she made the wrong friends and the right enemies and left with those retainers that would still follow her. They’re horrible people, and I did advise my queen <em>not </em>to let her nephew marry one. Still, the boy was besotted, and no one could deny the woman’s power. It seemed a good match.”</p><p>Her voice had gone low and hushed, drawing Imrael in despite himself. “What went wrong?” he asked, desperate for the answer for all he did not want to hear it surrounded by the silent ranks of Valdemar’s past kills. </p><p>“They raised their daughter in the Zalach’anni way and what is a girl to do when she comes of age and comes into her power other than claim it? I imagine, in her final moments, her mother was very proud. The Summer Court, of course, takes a dim view and so Val prefers to keep me here, to ensure I sing sweet songs back to my queen. Valdemar is an ambitious woman but she has no friends there. Instead, she has some idea of reclaiming what her mother lost in Zalach’ann.”</p><p>“But there’s no way Kiru can help her with that,” Imrael said uneasily. His neck prickled under the stares of dead glass eyes and Campion’s bright, living ones. Anything he gave her, she’d give away. “He isn’t anyone important. He’s only in the priesthood because he’s a bastard.” That was almost the truth and hopefully enough to get Valdemar off the scent. </p><p>Campion’s lazy smile didn’t budge an inch, but her ears pricked up. “I’m hardly her confidant,” he said, as though she didn’t care a jot. “I don’t know what she’s hoping to do with him.”</p><p>“Aren’t you worried I’ll go tell her what you told me?” Imrael said, trying to knock her off her balance.  </p><p>“Why would you? It won’t help you protect your friend. If he <em> is </em> your friend.” Her eyebrows underlined the implication. “You seem very invested in a bastard priest you met by happenstance.” </p><p>“I get easily attached.” Imrael lowered his voice. “Can you help us?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question, but he was afraid that getting out of here with the thralls had become secondary to getting out of here alive. </p><p>“I just did.” Campion rose from her seat, stretching like a satisfied cat. “Do you hear that? Horses in the courtyard. They’re back,” she said and sauntered from the room. </p><p>Imrael followed, close at her heels so he wouldn’t lose his way in the Spur’s stone labyrinth. The clatter of hooves and jingle of tack grew louder, along with the thrum of voices, and Imrael struggled to pick out Khazri’s even though, alive or dead, there was no chance that he’d be speaking. </p><p>He spilled out into a courtyard full of steaming horses, dung and blood. The stink had a physical weight to it but Imrael shouldered through, dodging hooves and grooms until he found Khazri’s grey mare. She was chewing placidly at her bit while Khazri stroked her nose, but her hindquarters were black with blood. </p><p>On the stone beside them lay the head of a wyvern. It was as large as a horse’s with a snake’s yawning mouth and a heavy ridge of scales across the brow. The forked tongue lolled grotesquely from the mouth, smearing more of that black blood across the ground. </p><p>“Your friend killed it!” Valdemar cried when she saw Imrael, sounding more pleased than if it had been her own achievement. “As beautiful as he is deadly and entirely mad!” </p><p>Khazri flinched from the compliment as from a blow. There was more of the black blood streaked across his cheek and smeared slick down the front of his grey shirt. It made Imrael pause before embracing him, a hesitance he was glad of once he remembered himself. Instead he clasped Khazri’s shoulder as though they were merely friends, and Imrael had not been at all afraid that Valdemar would bring him back gutted like a deer and slung across her horse’s neck.</p><p>“You killed it?” he said as Valdemar turned away to talk to a tall human woman Imrael took for the cook. “I didn’t know you could ride <em> and </em> shoot.”</p><p>“I can’t. I jumped off onto it. Used a knife.”</p><p>Despite the fear, Imrael couldn’t suppress a grin. “Of course you did.”</p><p>“The sting is the only thing to watch out for. And the teeth.”</p><p>“I know exactly how deadly a wyvern’s venom is so don’t try to play it off.” In the bustle of good-natured jibes, butchery and untacking, it was easy enough to draw away, out of earshot. “It was stupid for them all to go thundering off after one when apparently they couldn’t outhunt a man who hadn’t been on a horse in a decade.”</p><p>“The others shot wide or didn’t shoot at all. I think they wanted to see if I could do it.” Khazri’s ears flicked back; the thought troubled him like a fly. </p><p>“A test? What does it matter if you can kill a wyvern? Do they doubt you’re a priest?”</p><p>His ears flicked again. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“Listen, she wants to get back to Zalach’ann and I don’t know how you fit into tha- <em> ow</em>.” Khazri’s boot collided with his shin before he could finish the sentence, and before he could complain, a heavy gloved hand seized him by the shoulder. </p><p>“After a kill like that, I’m sure you’ll want to pray,” Valdemar said. “I know Jacith wants to show you the chapel.”</p><p>“I should change,”  Khazri said, shying away as her other arm dropped around his shoulders. </p><p>“Nonsense. Fresh from the hunt is how Arteru likes it best, or so I’ve heard.” Although he was looking around for rescue, Imrael could hear the leer in her voice. He could shake her off, but he was warier of raising suspicion than ever. He was willing to bet Khazri had made the same calculus because he didn’t shy away as she led them back into the Spur. </p><p>The chapel was set low within the stone, below ground level, and they passed down a dizzying spiral of stone steps to reach it. The air did not grow colder, but Imrael thought he could feel the weight of the stone above them pressing down, as heavy as Valdemar’s hand. </p><p>The chapel itself was a large room, big enough to fit the household thrice over. It might have been high ceilinged but sheets of white cobweb hung from it like banners, obscuring the true height. If he looked too long, Imrael could see small, busy shapes moving amongst their webbing, and though he had no great fear of spiders, he felt his scalp crawl. He did not dare to look at Khazri. </p><p>At the front of the church stood an icon; the Lady of Spiders, her eight arms and hooded face sculpted in white stone. Seven hands held the icons of her seven other aspects, while the last was empty, one finger pressed to her lips like a woman requesting silence on a shared secret. </p><p>“Welcome!” cried Jacith, bustling towards them. Small and round with long, twitching ears, she bore more resemblance to a beetle than a spider. “It’s been far too long since anyone has taken the trouble to visit me. Arteru is well worshipped here but the other gods must beg and scrape for our Lady Valdemar’s attention. Would you care to make an offering?”</p><p>Khazri nodded, although his shoulders had come up so high around his ears it was hard to tell. From a pocket he produced an inch-long piece of something pale marbled black with blood - a wyvern fang, Imrael realised - and laid it upon the altar. </p><p>“Lady,” Jacith murmured as Khazri bent over the offering, in prayer or the imitation of it. “I’ve heard back on the matter. May we talk?”</p><p>“By all means.” They stepped away, the cobwebs snaring and muffling all their words. </p><p>“Is that why you always take something from a kill?” Imrael said quietly. He’d never noticed Khazri doing anything overtly religious with the meat and hides he stripped carcasses down to, but that had never even occurred to him to look for it.</p><p>“Things come in useful,” Khazri said, which Imrael accepted as all the answer he was likely to get. “Did you find anything out?”</p><p>“Some. We’re leaving. Tonight.”</p><p>“What about the thralls?”</p><p>Imrael winced, the pinched, hopeless faces of Greywatch warring with the cold, sprouting feat that Campion had sown. “I wish we could do something, but I don’t think there’s time. We need to get you out of here before - ”</p><p>“Are you familiar with our Lady of Spiders, Master Imrael?” Jacith interrupted, pitching her voice to cut through the smothering webs. She and Valdemar had finished their discussion and were coming back across the church. </p><p>For once there was no smile on Valdemar’s broad face; she was entirely intent upon them and Imrael’s heart sank like a stone. </p><p>“Kiru’s explained the basics,” he said. He inched over to stand in front of Khazri, feeling foolish but unable to suppress the impulse. </p><p>“Excellent. Shall I explain a little more? Something I think Kiru has forgotten.”</p><p>“I think he knows what he’s talking about.” </p><p>“The world is her web, children,” said Jacith piously and, Imrael thought, with an edge of irony. “Tug on it <em> here</em>, and they feel it far away beneath the Ishlingwalls. Messengers scuttle back and forth between my sisters in Zalach’ann and me - I’m mixing my metaphors but I hope you take my point.”</p><p>“Her point is that we know you lied,” said Valdemar. “You’re not who you say you are. Not a priest and not even a ‘Kiru’.” She shook her head, smile creeping back onto her face. “What am I to do with you?”</p><p>Imrael opened his mouth to lie and closed it again, not sure where to begin.</p><p>“I’m- I’m not a priest,” Khazri said. He sounded desperately uncertain, but he often did even when being honest, and Imrael hoped that would mask the lies he was about to tell. “The truth is, I’m- I- My parents weren’t married. My mother sent me away. That’s why I’m here. I’m sorry for lying but- but it’s a great shame to the family. I’m not supposed to say it.”</p><p>“Now that has the ring of truth,” Valdemar said. “But it’s not the whole of it, is it? Kiru was your father’s name, no? But I’m not overmuch concerned with him. Your mother now, she is of great interest to me.” </p><p>Khazri’s face was stricken, a sickly pallor Imrael hadn’t seen since he almost bled out facing the monstrous god of Milcom. “My mother is- she’s a mercenary. Of no great renown.”</p><p>“Your mother is Margravine Khamsin Il’harren,” Valdemar parried implacably. “It’s a pleasure to have you, Khazri.”</p><p>“No.” Khazri sounded near as baffled as he was fearful. “No, she’s not. That’s not - ”</p><p>“Not true? I can assure you it is. You’ve been missing for some time, haven’t you?”</p><p>“If Khazri was the son of a margravine, I don’t think he’d be wandering around the woods with me,” Imrael said with a forced chuckle. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. I think I’d know if I’d spend the last few months in the company of some lord.”</p><p>“That would be an excellent argument if I weren’t certain that you knew full well who he was,” Although it was Imrael she answered, Valdemar’s eyes stayed fixed on Khazri, who had backed up against the altar, into the Lady’s eight-armed embrace. “The walls have ears, my sweet. Or the things that hang upon them.”</p><p>There were as many tapestries in the chapel as the rest of the house. On the wall opposite, one of the fat spiders waved her pedipalps at them and winked one of her eight eyes.</p><p>“Fuck,” Imrael breathed. He was going to murder Rysserova. If Valdemar didn’t murder him here and now. </p><p>“Language, little brother,” Jacith chided. “This is a temple.”</p><p>“Does my mother know?” Khazri said, voice thin and suddenly very young. “Does she know I’m here?”</p><p>If Valdemar had been any closer, she might have patted his hand, but as it was she only smiled. “Oh my, no. I’d like very much to speak with her, but there are arrangements to be made first.”</p><p>“<em>My </em>mother is named Penneth,” Imrael said with his loveliest smile. It felt very brittle upon his face. “She’s the finest bladesmith in Ferris but I don’t see that who our mothers change anything at all. We appreciate the hospitality you’ve given us, but we are <em> leaving</em>.”</p><p>“Letting two boys wander the woods alone would be ignoble. Letting the scion of one of Zalach’ann’s foremost houses face the wilderness unprotected would be criminal. What if some brigands abducted you?” Valdemar winked at Imrael. “No, you are under my protection now and I promise I will keep you safe.”</p><p>“That’s very kind, but in no way your responsibility.” Imrael grabbed Khazri by the wrist and started up the aisle towards the exit. He might as well have seized the idol’s stone wrist; Khazri didn’t move. </p><p>“I must insist,” said Valdemar. From beyond the door came the scuff of boots; the Hunt, encircling their quarry. Imrael looked desperately for a second exit, and saw only webs, closing tight. </p><p>“And <em> I </em> must insist. Come <em> on</em>, Kiru.” It was far too late for the pretence to do any good, but Imrael kept it up out of stubbornness. “Unless you intend to throw us in the dungeons, you can’t keep us here.”</p><p>“There are other, stronger bonds,” said the huntswoman. “Khazri, I have a proposal for you.”</p><p>“What sort of proposal?” Imrael said suspiciously.</p><p>“Let me do it properly.” Valdemar walked towards them, slow as a leopard stalking prey. And then, in the centre of the church, beneath the Lady of Spider’s shrouded gaze, she dropped to one knee. “Khazri Il’harren, will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well,” said Imrael, when they were finally alone, locked in his stupidly spacious apartments to ‘consider the offer’. “That’s something. It makes an awful sort of sense -” </p><p>He was cut off by Khazri’s hand coming down over his mouth. Imrael let himself be dragged across the vast unnecessary expanse of floor and out onto the balcony, where Khazri released him. “You knew this was coming,” he whispered, glancing warily back into the room where the tapestries hung. “Why?”</p><p>“One of her courtiers says she wants to go back to Zalach’ann, but she needs leverage to get there. I suppose she thinks you’ll give her that.” </p><p>“If she knows anything about my family, she knows it won’t work. I don’t matter to them.” He said it with puzzlement more than self-pity. </p><p>All Imrael knew of Khazri’s family and came from one brief, unhappy conversation when Khazri had been too tired to guard his tongue. It wasn’t much to go on. “Could this be about the sacrifice? Could she use the fact that you’re still alive to blackmail your mother into supporting her?”</p><p>“If me being alive was the problem, it’s easily solved.”</p><p>Not a joke, Imrael realised, stifling an awkward laugh. “Alright,” he said, trying to think only of how the facts fit together and not of how individually horrible they were. “And I suppose if she only wanted you as leverage, she wouldn’t need to marry you. Are you your mother’s only child?” </p><p>“I was ten years ago,” Khazri said warily, as though Imrael were the one trying to trap him. </p><p>“Then doesn’t that make you her heir?” </p><p>“Even if I were legitimate, a son can’t inherit.” Khazri considered. He always avoided eye contact when he was upset, and he looked away now, gaze roving across the moors. “But If my grandmother is dead and my mother holds her title, it’s- it would be messy. Two of my aunts are dead and the third is a priest. It would- Next in line would have to be my cousin Cierza. If she’s alive.”</p><p>“Would your mother want that? Over a theoretical granddaughter?” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘over your daughter’. The wind coming off the darkening moor was chilly and Imrael shivered in it, wishing for his sheepskin coat over a dead man’s borrowed silks. </p><p>Khazri hesitated. “She hated Cierza’s mother. She had me just to spite her. If she doesn’t have a legitimate heir yet, then she might.” </p><p>Imrael wanted to ask how you could have a child to spite someone, but decided he really didn’t want to know the answer. “That would get Valdemar exactly what she wants,” he concluded. “Even if it doesn’t work, she’s going to try it. We have to get out of here. If we tie the sheets together, do you think we could rappel down from this balcony?” The bedsheets were fine but the silk was probably strong enough to support their weight.</p><p>“I think you could.” Khazri hopped up onto the railing and balanced on the balls of his feet, looking down speculatively at the stretch of rock below. Lit by moonlight, his still face could have been carved from the same stone as the icon in the chapel. “But I’m not going.”</p><p>“What are you talking about? I know we haven’t figured out how to help the thralls, but we’re certainly not waiting around so Valdemar can use you in her horrible queenmaker scheme. That doesn’t help anyone.” Selfish, it was selfish, but he’d done his best and if <em>he </em>didn’t save Khazri, no one would. </p><p>“It could. She might let them go now we have something she wants.”</p><p>“You’re not a something!” Imrael yelled, forgetting for a moment that they were trying to avoid being overheard. “I’m not going to go on my merry way while you sell yourself to a monster.”</p><p>“You need to go. Or she’ll hurt you.”</p><p>That she very likely would hadn’t even occurred to Imrael, but he saw with a horrible clarity that while she held Khazri as leverage against his mother, Imrael was leverage against Khazri. Perhaps that was why she had left them alone ‘to consider’ - letting fear of the implicit threat do all her persuading for her. “You don’t know that,” he said weakly.</p><p>From beyond the wall, a howl rose up, thin and thready, and Khazri finally looked down at him. “She won’t let me go, but if I negotiate now, some good comes of it.”</p><p>“What is it with you and self-sacrifice?” Imrael said, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. Was this even self-sacrifice? There had been a wistfulness in Khazri’s voice the night before when he spoke of his memories of home, and a sharpness when he’d reminded Imrael that <em>he </em>was Zalach’anni. “How does this not frighten you? Do you <em>want </em>this? Do you want to go back?”</p><p>Khazri’s expression was answer enough. Better Imrael had slapped him. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Imrael said. “Gods, I’m sorry, that was an awful thing to say. I know you don’t, I know you’re trying, but forget the thralls. Forget everything, maybe they catch us but maybe they don’t and we have to try. We’re leaving. <em> Now </em>.”</p><p>There was a long, still moment in which he was terrified Khazri was going to refuse again. But as he watched, Khazri’s face shifted, jaw tightening, the blankness of a statue giving way to sharp intent. </p><p>“They’ll catch us,” he said, hopping back down onto the balcony, but it was a logistical objection and Imrael could work with that. Khazri was at his best when he had a problem to set himself against. </p><p>“Maybe, but is that a reason not to try? They’ll expect us to sit around wringing our hands or planning what you’re going to wear to your wedding, not rappelling down the side of their ugly rock. Come on. Grab your pack and we’re gone.”</p><p>The sheets were, fortunately, strong enough to support them; it would have been awkward to discover halfway down a wall that they were not. Imrael went first, clinging white-knuckled to the sheets, boots slipping on the guttering. The delicate stonework made for an easy climb, but it was slick with moss and algae. Clearly, Valdemar hadn’t been expecting an escape attempt, or she would have put them somewhere with fewer ornamental stone branches offering themselves as footholds. Still, Imrael was breathing heavily by the time he touched down in the stone gardens below that encircled the manse. Above him, Khazri untied the sheets and tossed them down to coil into a snakey pile, and then made the climb himself without their aid, hanging from his fingertips and scuttling across the roof of a colonnade like a squirrel. </p><p>“Showoff,” Imrael muttered as he dropped down beside him.</p><p>“For getting over the wall,” Khazri said, picking up the sheets, which was annoyingly reasonable. He wrapped them around his waist like a bulky sash and loped away in the direction of the outer walls.</p><p>Standing at their base, any sense of triumph Imrael had felt at how easily they’d escaped the mansion evaporated. The wall was thirty feet of slick black stone. No guards posted atop it, but none were necessary. Though it had probably been designed to keep people out rather than in, it served the latter function well enough. Imrael pressed his hand to it and felt the cold seep into his palm. “Can you do it?” he asked Khazri, who was sighting up it dubiously.</p><p>“We’ll see,” he said, stepping out of his boots. “Give me a boost.” </p><p>Imrael obediently cupped his hand together and stooped so that Khazri could step into it, and hop from there up to his shoulders. Although Khazri was slight for a human, he was stocky for an elf, and Imrael said ‘Oof’ and then dodged the toe jabbed at his ear. That was almost enough to overbalance them, and Khazri had to grab the wall to keep them both upright. </p><p>He was still a moment, searching for a grip, and then his weight abruptly lessened. Imrael stepped away and looked up to find him clinging to the wall like a spider. It was a comparison Khazri would probably object to, but there was no other way to describe how he went up the wall, clinging with toes and fingertips. </p><p>Progress was painfully slow, and Imrael paced beneath him with his pulse pounding in his throat, wishing there was anything he could do. The wall was magical, he could feel the power deep in the roots of the stone, thrumming like a toothache, but he didn’t have the first idea of how to tap into it. All his training had been in sculpting flesh, not stone. </p><p>And so Imrael paced and Khazri climbed until five feet from the top, he reached for a grip that wasn’t there. </p><p>The slip was silent, as was the fall. </p><p>Khazri managed to get his feet under him as he landed, only to collapse onto his side with a sharp, pained gasp. </p><p>Imrael ran to him and dropped to his knees. One of Khazri’s legs was twisted under him but as he went to straighten it he subsided with another hiss of pain. There was sweat on his brow and his mouth was set in annoyance. </p><p>“Shit. Is that broken?”</p><p>Khazri tried to straighten his leg again and winced. “Yes.”</p><p>“Alright, hold still.” It was a stress fracture and a turned ankle, and Imrael drew out the swelling and mended the damaged bone with no real struggle. “Ideally you’d stay off this for a few hours.”</p><p>“Ideally I wouldn’t be escaping a forced marriage.”</p><p>“A compelling argument.” Imrael looked along the wall, black shadows on black stone, trying to see anything that would help them. Anything that would save them from an hour of Khazri repeatedly breaking himself on it. “The stone looks a bit rougher there, do you think it would make for better handholds?”</p><p>“Let’s find out.” </p><p>Dusting himself off, Khazri got to his feet. The movement was light and easy, and Imrael relaxed. “Break all the bones you want but I can’t fix you if you die,” he said.</p><p>Khazri shrugged and waited until Imrael made a stirrup of his hands for him. </p><p>It took three attempts and two more breaks, during which time Imrael became increasingly less terrified for him and more and more bored and cold, but eventually, Khazri made it to the top of the wall. </p><p>Once Khazri had rolled his eyes at a round of silent applause and hauled the packs up, Imrael took a grip on the sheets himself and looked up at the stone face. Watching Khazri climb hadn’t given him the proper appreciation for just how high and steep the wall was. “Is it too late to go back inside?” he whispered.</p><p>Khazri frowned down at him. “This was your idea.”</p><p>“Yes, I suppose it was.” Imrael put one foot up on the wall and pulled down on the rope. “Ready?”</p><p>After a day in silk slippers, it was a relief to feel his battered old boots grip the stone. It was hard going, and his arms were burning before he was halfway up the wall. Halfway up was exactly the wrong place for your arms to start aching, and Imrael gritted his teeth. He didn’t have reserves of strength to dig into but he did have reserves of magic to dump into his tired muscles, purging the exhaustion and letting him drag himself hand over hand up to the top.</p><p>Khazri grabbed his arm and dragged him over the edge, where he sprawled out panting on a thin ribbon of stone. Beneath them the moors rolled away, stark and vast, each tree and stone limned in starlight.  </p><p>“It’s almost worth it for the view,” Imrael said, sitting up. </p><p>Getting down was a lot quicker, but just as painful. The wolves were waiting for them, stepping on each other and bowled Khazri over in their hurry to greet him. He bumped noses with Beryl as Jeff tried to fit Khazri’s head into his jaws. “They know where there’s a stream we can follow,'' he said, indistinctly because Jeff was trying to lick the inside of his mouth.”</p><hr/><p>It was only a mile of frantic scrambling over boulders and through gorse before they stood upon the banks of a thin rill shining white with reflected moonlight. Khazri gave the bedsheets to the wolves and sent them off through the undergrowth. “False trail.”</p><p>“Will it work?”</p><p>“Probably not,” said Khazri and dropped down into the stream. “North would take us back towards Greywatch,” he said, hesitating with the water babbling around his ankles. </p><p>The thought of the tower and even the iron was perversely comforting, but when you set it against Valdemar who could sweep aside stone with the wave of a hand, it amounted to less than Imrael would have liked. “No. Things are bad enough for them already, they don’t need us making it worse.”</p><p>They went south, as fast as they dared on the slippery rocks of the streambed, pebbles turning under their feet. Imrael felt a horrible sense of deja vu as he tripped, turned his ankle, and spelled it sound again. They’d run like this before, and it had done them no good at all, but it was too late to say that now. After a few hours, two grey shapes rose from the dark and in his alarm Imrael almost fell over again. It was only the wolves though, silent but for their panting.</p><p>The stars wheeled above them and the sky kindled to their left, burning off the night, and at last, they heard the sound that they’d been waiting for; the awful baying of the hounds. </p><p>There was little cover other than the juts of rock that erupted toothlike from the hill, the same grey stone as the Spur. Khazri scrambled up onto the top of one and dragged Imrael after him. He strung his bow and put an arrow to it while the wolves paced beneath them, tails flat, ears back. </p><p>Upon the bleak plain beneath a golden dawn, they saw the Hunt not long after they heard them, black specks upon the bracken. They had to watch a long time before the hounds drew close enough for Khazri to put an arrow in one, plucking it from the air mid-bound. </p><p>The dogs were slower in coming after that, but they did not stop. Soon three lay dead amongst the yellow-flowered gorse and still they all came on. </p><p>The riders hung back, out of bowshot but not so far away that Imrael could not see when one raised her hand. Valdemar, it had to be, for the rock beneath them bucked like a startled horse. Imrael hit the ground hard, the breath going out of him with a woosh. Before he could rise, grey paws bracketed his head. Jeff stood over him, teeth bared.</p><p>Imrael had just got his legs under him when the black wave of dogs broke over them. To his right, Beryl ducked under the first hound’s lunge and her jaws snapped closed around its throat. She tore and leapt away, already turning to meet the next. They were faster than the dogs, but smaller and one wrong move would see them buried beneath the weight of numbers. One of the dogs caught her by the hind leg and she whirled on it, snarling. Her teeth raked its ear and it released her, but it was the opening another needed to barrel into her side. </p><p>Some yards away, atop their horses, the Hunt watched her go down. </p><p>Khazri had kept his footing on the stone but when she fell he dropped his bow and dropped down onto the back of the dog that had her. That didn’t dislodge it, but the knife Khazri plunged into its throat did. </p><p>Another of the hounds came for him. Khazri threw up his left arm to protect his face and the dog seized it, teeth tearing at the leather of his bracer. Khazri drove his knife into its eye but it held its grip, and then another dog barrelled into him, knocking him from his feet. A cry of pain would almost have been better but Khazri fought in silence and increasing desperation. </p><p>Jeff had run into the fray but Imrael could already see how it would end. Blood and viscera spilling across the grass, and he crawled forwards, ready to throw himself into that snarling ball of blades and teeth. He didn’t have the first idea how to swing a blade, but people forgot that healing wasn’t thinking happy thoughts until a person got better. There were oaths that he’d sworn willingly because to mend a body you had to know how it could be broken. Healing magic was excision and cell division and a thousand times more horrible than anything a battlemage could do with a conjured ball of fire. He raised his hand -</p><p>- And the ground swallowed him.</p><p>The dirt beneath him had given way as though it had changed to water, flowing up over his legs, closing around his chest. He flailed, trying to get his arms out of it, sending up a splash of dust, and then the earth went solid again, holding him tight. </p><p>The clench around Imrael’s ribs was so tight he could scarcely draw breath. He’d managed to keep one hand free and with his nails he raked the dirt, scrabbling for purchase while his legs twitched helplessly against their stone fetters. </p><p>Sat atop her tall horse, flanked by her hunters, Valdemar lowered her clenched fist and smiled at him. She could have trapped them all from the start, but she’d wanted the fight, Imrael realised. A better mage might have been able to set his will against hers, against the crushing weight of stone and win free, but his magic found no more purchase against her than his body did against the dirt.</p><p>“Enough!” Valdemar cried and immediately, the dogs drew back. Reluctantly, snarls dripping from their muzzles, but even the one that had lost its eye obeyed. </p><p>Wearily, Khazri got to his feet. One leg dragged, and when Jeff and Beryl came to stand beside him, their fur was stained and both their sides heaved with desperate pants for air.</p><p>“You led us on quite a chase,” said Valdemar. She slid down from her horse and stepped carefully around the body of a dead dog. “We rode an hour in the wrong direction. But I am nothing if not tenacious.”</p><p>“Maybe you should learn to take a hint,” said Imrael. He was proud of how level his voice came out, despite the earth, despite the fear that constricted his chest. “His answer’s no.”</p><p>“He can speak for himself, can’t he? Khazri Il’harren, what do you say?”</p><p>Khazri didn’t say anything, but he snatched his bow from the ground, notched, drew and loosed so quickly Imrael couldn’t follow the movement until the arrow was in the air. </p><p>It would have taken Valdemar in the face but she plucked it from the air as easily as catching a ball tossed by a child. Her grip tightened until the shaft snapped into two pieces which she let fall. “Our daughters will be magnificent,” she said. “But first things first. Kill the pets.”</p><p>It took a long moment for Imrael to parse the words, longer for him to open his mouth to object, and in that time Khazri had launched himself at her, following the path of his arrow, both wolves at his heels. </p><p>Quick as he was, it was too much ground to cover. </p><p>As Jeff leapt, the first bolt took him in the throat, two more in the chest. There was no whine or frantic scrabble for life. He had begun the leap as a living beast and ended it as dead meat. He hit the earth with a thud, legs twisted under him. </p><p>Beryl died more slowly, sides heaving, pink foam coating her muzzle, hind legs kicking furrows in the dirt. </p><p>The noise Khazri made was terrible, a wolf’s snarl coming from a man’s throat. His right hand came up, a knife flashing for Valdemar’s belly. Imrael had heard of mages fainting at the loss of their familiars and from her expression, Valdemar had been ready to catch him in a swoon, not catch his wrist when he tried to gut her. She did it all the same, breaking the strike, and probably his wrist as well from the sharp snap that lashed across the moors. It didn’t slow him. He went for her with his teeth. </p><p>She certainly wasn’t prepared for that. She cried out in surprise and then again in pain as her throat tore with an awful, gristly sound.</p><p>Blood sprayed the grass. For a second Imrael glimpsed Khazri’s pale face against her neck, as bloody as Jeff’s fur, and then he bit her again. </p><p>By then two of her hunters had overcome their shock enough to grab him, one pinning his arms while another caught him by the hair. Valdemar cried out again as she tried to lever him off and so, chivalry forgotten, the woman slammed her mailed fist into the side of his head. </p><p>Imrael needed to do something, get free, help him, but his mind was blank. Valdemar was standing now, with the help of her guard, one hand pressed to her neck where blood pulsed thick between her fingers. </p><p>Khazri hissed at her, baring blood-filmed teeth, and at Valdemar’s gesture, the guard hit him again and then a third time, until he sagged in their grip. </p><p>“I like a boy with some fight in him,” said Valdemar, in a voice that came out nowhere near as light as she must have meant it to. “Though maybe not quite that much. Imrael. Dearest. I’m sure that was upsetting and I’m sorry you had to witness it.”</p><p>Imrael licked his lips and said nothing. He was still replaying it in his head. The thud of the arrows, the dispassion on Valdemar’s face, the madness that had twisted Khazri’s. Now he hung like a doll in the guards’ grip, unmoving, and Imrael could repair the damage the blows had done but not the rest.</p><p>“Would you be a treasure?” Valdemar raised her free hand to indicate her throat and, at the same time, the earth around him shifted, moulding and reshaping, drawing him up until he was lying on the grass, gritty but unharmed. </p><p>Shakily, Imrael got to his feet and dusted himself off. “No.”</p><p>“That wasn’t a request.”</p><p>“That- that wasn’t a refusal.” Imrael dropped to his knees beside the wolves. Jeff was gone, you didn’t need to be a doctor to see that, but Beryl’s sides still heaved, blood-mottled tongue hanging from her mouth as she panted for air. “Let me save her. Then I’ll heal you. I can’t imagine he could have hurt you badly.”</p><p>“No.” It pleased her to refuse him, Imrael realised. The pain had shaken her, and now she sought to reassert control. If he kept refusing, she’d find other ways.</p><p>“You can always kill her later,” Imrael told her. It was maybe the worst thing he’d ever said. “And when he wakes up he’ll be more…amenable if you have her locked up somewhere.” </p><p>“Perhaps it’s the blood loss but that makes a sort of sense,” she said slowly. “Very well. You may heal her.”</p><p>Beryl snarled when he came near, so low he could feel it in his feet, and raised her head to snap. For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to let him touch her, that he’d have to watch her wheeze and die the same death as her brother, but some part of her still knew him and her lips closed over her teeth. He crept closer on hands and knees, too aware of the audience of hunters, and she licked his wrist with her pink bloody tongue and then laid her head down on the dirt and closed her eyes. </p><p>Getting the arrows out was a horrible, bloody business. Two in her flank, one that’d grazed a foreleg, and one in the chest that’d scraped its way between her ribs to nick a lung. When they were free, Imrael buried his fingers in the thick fur of the wolf’s neck and poured himself into mending the wounds. </p><p>Valdemar was waiting with barely concealed impatience and well-hidden fear. Bravado kept her from admitting how badly she was hurt but the pain was surely bad and blood had stained her pale gold doublet brown. She’d done something to slow the bleeding herself but the wounds were deep and ragged, more the tearing of an animal than a man, and Imrael tamped down a surge of queasy pride. </p><p>He rarely worked magic on other elves, save Khazri who didn’t have much magic of his own. Healing Valdemar felt like her very flesh was fighting him, too sure of its own shape to take his suggestion it be whole. Eventually, with careful coaxing and more power than he’d wanted to spend, blood vessels wormed and crawled and reknit themselves, and the skin smoothed out over them like clay. </p><p>“You have a rare gift, Master Imrael,” Valdemar said with a smile, and Imrael bit back the urge to say that, gifted or not, he’d spent years training and honing his craft. </p><p>“I’ll need to heal him too,” he said, panting. It’d been fifteen minutes and Khazri hadn’t stirred, which was deeply worrying. A beating like that could have killed him and still might.</p><p>Perhaps Valdemar realised it too, or perhaps she was too tired to deal with them any longer. “As you wish. I’ll have more to say to him - and you - when he’s awake, but that can wait until the morning. We’re going home.”</p><p><em> Home</em>. Imrael resisted the urge to spit. </p><p>After Valdemar, mending Khazri was almost easy. Not actually easy, because head injuries were so much more delicate than forcing veins back into alignment, but he didn’t have to fight to ease the bruising. It would be sentimental to say that what little magic Khazri had trusted him and let him work, but that was how it felt. </p><p>After some twenty minutes of careful manipulation, Khazri moaned, fingers twitching but before he could rouse, Imrael hit him with the most powerful sleeping spell he could muster, sinking him back into unconsciousness. It felt foul to do, but Imrael was fairly sure if Khazri woke now it would be to another fight and another beating. When he stilled again, Imrael sighed his relief and brushed clots of hair back from Khazri’s brow, ostensibly checking for any wounds he’d missed, but mostly for the gesture itself. They weren’t especially affectionate at the best of times - Khazri was twitchy, prone to shying away - but respecting that wasn’t the same as being terrified of the consequences of being caught. </p><p>The moment didn’t last. When they saw he was done, two guards snatched Khazri away and passed him up to Valdemar, who had gained her saddle. It wasn’t that Imrael wanted her to hurt Khazri again, but that would have been better than the way she held him, head cradled against her shoulder. If he’d woken, he could have gone for her throat again but Imrael’s spell held through all the long ride back to the Spur, Imrael sat numbly on the back of Campion’s steed, arms wrapped tight around her waist to keep his seat. The two wolves, one living, one dead, were draped over the back of other riders’ horses like hunting trophies. </p><p>When the high stone walls had closed around them, Imrael first followed the guards that dragged Beryl’s limp body to the kennels and locked her in. Khazri would want to know where she was, and that her breath came slow but even. </p><p>When he went in search of Khazri himself, Imrael found him laid out upon the bed in his room. He hadn’t expected to find Rysserova at the bedside, holding a bowl of water and a soft cloth, preparing to wash away the worst of the blood.</p><p>“Thank you but I’ll take it from here,” Imrael told him. The words came out cold, but it was better than snarling, <em> “Don’t touch him!” </em> like he wanted to.</p><p>Rysserova set the cloth down. “I did warn you about her temper,” he said mildly. “And I know Campion told you about the hunting accidents. You were warned twice over.”</p><p>“And I know <em> you </em> told her who he was,” Imrael snapped. His nerves were in tatters and he needed to tend to Khazri, not trade jibes with Valdemar’s smirking brother. “She wouldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t been spying on us.”</p><p>“For what it’s worth, I didn’t think he really was going to turn out to be the lost scion of a noble house.” Rysserova smiled conciliatingly. “Bad luck all around.”</p><p>“Just get out.”</p><p>He did, without a backwards glance, and Imrael turned back to Khazri and picked up the cloth. The blood had set into a sticky crust and it took a fair bit of patience to scrub it away, pink water staining the neck of his shirt. Imrael had cleaned most of it off when Khazri’s eyes opened, glassiness giving way swiftly to an expression that Imrael recoiled from.</p><p>“Easy,” he made himself say. “Don’t sit up.”</p><p>Khazri sat up. </p><p>Wild-eyed, his face still streaked with blood, Khazri looked, perversely, more like himself than he had since they arrived. “You were right,” he said abruptly. He resisted a moment and then let Imrael press him back to the bed.</p><p>“I wasn’t, I was completely wrong, oh fuck, Khazri, I’m sorry, I should never have made you run, it’s my fault - ”</p><p>“I’ve been acting like a child,” Khazri said, ignoring him. “Too scared to think.”</p><p>“I don’t think I was afraid enough ‘til now.” Imrael laughed but it sounded thin and strained even to his own ears. “I’m sorry. You wanted to play along but I pushed you to run and now he’s - ”</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>“I loved him too. I know it’s not the same, but - ”</p><p>“<em>Don’t</em>,” Khazri said sharply and Imrael reluctantly subsided. </p><p>“Beryl’s safe. They have her locked up but I healed her.”</p><p>“I know. Thanks.” There was a long silence during which Imrael tried to get a good look at Khazri’s eyes. The irises were red-tinged and the pupils constricted, which would have been wildly concerning for anyone else but was quite normal for Khazri. “In the morning,” he said, “I’m going to say yes.” </p><p>Imrael hadn’t thought he could feel any sicker with guilt and terror. He’d been wrong. “Khazri, no, I know you’re hurting but you <em> cannot </em> - ”</p><p>“I’m going to tell her yes,” Khazri repeated, louder. His voice was flat, but something in his expression - the narrowing of his eyes, the furious set of his jaw - made Imrael pause, made him play back the sentence with emphasis on the ‘tell’. Khazri was naturally terse and Imrael had learned to read as much meaning from posture and the tilt of his ears as from his words. “We can’t win on her terms.”</p><p>A plan. He had a plan. Imrael hoped to the gods he didn’t particularly believe in that he was reading this right. “I- I understand,” he said, trying to sound reluctant. “You have to do what’s safest. You’re not a match for her and all her soldiers in a fair fight, and I’m not a match for a kennelgirl with a stick. It wouldn’t even have to be a big stick. And then there’s the brother to contend with. He’s probably listening to us right now.” He hesitated. </p><p>Khazri gave the tiniest twitch of his head in agreement. </p><p>“So,” Imrael said, feeling more confident, trying to sound less so. “You want the wedding to go ahead? What am <em> I </em> supposed to do?”</p><p>Khazri didn’t answer aloud, but he worried at the collar of his shirt a moment, and then pressed his hand to Imraels. In his palm was something small and hard, a vial that, in the glimpse Imrael saw of it before slipping it into a pocket, held a translucent liquid, oily and yellowish. It took him a moment to realise what it had to be, and then it struck him and Imrael resolved never to laugh at him for being a packrat again. </p><p>“That’s up to you,” Khazri said. “I’m sorry.” He’d never been a particularly good actor, but his voice was low and still rough from the fight, and that covered for the flatness of the delivery. </p><p>“I just wish there was something I could do for the thralls,” Imrael said with feigned wistfulness and Khazri nodded again; message received, Imrael hoped. “But don’t worry.” What they had was less a plan than a loose collection of individual bad ideas, none of which they could clearly outline to each other. But the alternative was letting Valdemar have her way, which was unconscionable. “I’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.”</p><p>“We killed a god,” Khazri reminded him, face breaking into a small, fierce smile.</p><p>He grabbed Imrael, hair and collar caught and crumpled in his grip, and pulled his head down low enough to kiss him. The kiss was a desperate, savage thing, all urgency and sharp teeth. Teeth that had torn the Mistress of the Hunt’s throat to shreds and tatters, Imrael remembered, and returned the kiss with equal hunger.   </p><p>There was blood on his lips when he sat back, not his and not Khazri’s. Imrael touched his fingers to them a little disgusted but mostly, to his consternation, aroused.</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be. Hold this thought.”</p><p>“Stay?” Khazri shifted over on the bed, making space.</p><p>Common sense dictated refusal. If they were going to get out of here, they had to pretend to play Valdemar’s game and the fewer suspicions they raised the better. Imrael ignored his common sense entirely and crawled up onto the bed. Khazri hadn’t asked Imrael to stay after the lake had almost drowned him and he’d given up the miserable story of his childhood, but he was asking now. “If anyone asks, this is because of the head injury. They’re very dangerous things. I need to check you over in the morning.” </p><p>Murmuring agreement, Khazri curled up against his chest. Imrael wondered for a moment if it was him Khazri wanted or a substitute for his lost wolves, but decided it didn’t matter. He ran a hand through Khazri’s fine, pale hair until he felt the tension leach from his limbs and his breathing slow. It wouldn’t last; Khazri twitched and kicked like a snared rabbit at the best of times, and Imrael doubted the night’s events would help. </p><p>From outside came a howl, thin and piercing, cutting through the constant baying of the hounds. Beryl, Imrael knew at once, and drew Khazri closer.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rap on the door came much too soon. </p><p>Imrael was up and dressed, hair neatly combed but Khazri, with an uncharacteristic flare for the dramatic, had changed into a nightshirt, looking sickly and suitably chastened. </p><p>Or at least Imrael hoped he was only in character and not still reeling from the bloody events of the night before, but there was no safe way for him to ask. He opened the door to Valdemar, wearing a sky blue tunic over white doeskin breeches and a look of grave concern atop great smugness. </p><p>“Wait outside,” she said brusquely. </p><p>“Until the formalities are completed, I think a chaperone is only proper,” Imrael said, stepping back as she surged past him into the room. There was nothing proper about an arrangement that had begun with an abduction, a beating and a murdered familiar, but Imrael worked with the tools he had.</p><p>Valdemar turned from the bed and stepped in close until she and Imrael were almost chest to chest. Imrael was tall for a man, but Valdemar stood a half-foot above him and her sleeveless tunic showed the lean muscle in her bare arms to impressive effect. Until last night, the threat she posed to him had been implicit but this brought it into sharp focus. </p><p>“I think, at this point in our acquaintance, Khazri and I can dispense with the formalities,” she said. “Leave.”</p><p>“Go,” Khazri said quietly, and so Imrael did.</p><p>He lingered in the corridor outside. It would do nothing to dissuade Valdemar and he had more urgent tasks to attend to, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. </p><p>Opposite him hung another of the Spur’s innumerable tapestries, this one depicting a city of white stone. There was an organic look to its soft, sculptural buildings, as though they’d been fashioned from stalagmites or secreted by nautiluses. Through its streets moved processions of pale, robed people dressed in veils and brilliant robes, or in armour like the bright carapaces of beetles. Zalach’ann, as Valdemar’s mother must have remembered it. It was very beautiful. </p><p>And within the city, Imrael saw the ugly, lumpen creature he had embroidered himself the day before, strolling through the streets with its muzzle high. He reached out with his fingers to brush its knotty hide, and with his mind for the magic that had fashioned it. How did Rysserova do this? It had to be similar to the magic used when forming a familiar bond, and a skilled mage could speak to her familiar, act through it, see through it. Imrael had never bound a familiar of his own, but this had to be easier; this wasn’t another living creature but a being formed entirely from his own magic. </p><p>Imrael closed his eyes and opened them in Zalach’ann. Probably. He blinked and the image - blurry, distorted as though he were looking through badly-blown glass - came into sharper focus. He had to assume it was because of how wonky and misshapen his creature’s eyes were. </p><p>If he’d had the time, Imrael might have spent hours delighting in this new magic, exploring both its limits and the city’s soft streets and woven towers. But all that mattered was getting back into the next room. Obedient to his will, the little creature slipped from beneath his fingers, out of the tapestry Zalach’ann, and into the next room. This was a hunting scene, where a griffon reared and flexed its eagle claws at an onrushing wave of hounds. </p><p>Imrael ignored it utterly. Valdemar was sat upon the edge of the bed, hand an inch from Khazri’s where it lay upon the coverlet. Her manner had shifted from predatory to tender like she’d donned a new cloak. “I’m here to apologise. Tempers were high last night, and mine drove me to do something I’m not proud of. I should have seen how upset you were and made you understand. Why did you run, Khazri?”</p><p>“My mother will kill me. She’ll kill you too.” Not a good actor, but all that was required was for Khazri to sound nervous, which he clearly was in truth. “It won’t work.”</p><p>“It’s been a long time since you left Zalach’ann. Much has changed.” </p><p>Imrael wished Khazri would ask <em>what </em>had changed, but he didn’t speak. He was very still. “You want to go home, don’t you?” Valdemar asked. She cupped his cheek tenderly, and Imrael thought sickly of all the times he’d wished to do the same.</p><p>The words weren’t spoken but Imrael saw Khazri’s lips move, and so did Valdemar. “I can take you there,” she said. Her hand was at his throat now, palm pressed to the fine bone of his clavicle. “I don’t care that you’re a bastard. Your mother’s blood is in you - last night was proof enough of that. And I don’t care that you’re half-wild, for a tame husband would not suit me. This marriage does not have to be a cage. It can free us both. We can find a home.” </p><p>The worst thing about that little speech was that Imrael didn’t think she knew that she was lying. She’d believe it until Khazri defied her again and she hurt him again, and keep believing it after.</p><p>In a thread tree above where Imrael’s spy stood, a mistle thrush was preening its thread wings, and Valdemar looked to it with a smile. “A little bird told me you’ve reconsidered my proposal. Shall I ask again?”</p><p>“Your thralls,” said Khazri softly.</p><p>“There are a thousand thousand slaves in Zalach’ann, and none are as happy as mine. I will make you this promise; when we are wed, I’ll send Imrael upon his way.” </p><p>What else had they expected? If they’d had any intention of going along with it, Imrael would have been furious. As it was he bit his lip against a burst of hysterical laughter. </p><p>Valdemar dropped to one knee beside the bed and took up one of his hands. It lay limp in her grasp. “What is your answer, Lord Il’harren? I would have it from your lips.”</p><p>Khazri raised his head and Imrael finally got a look at his face. His breathing was slow, mouth set in a thin, determined line, and Imrael was reminded of all the times he’d watched Khazri hold his bowstring to his cheek and sight along the shaft before he loosed a shot.</p><p>“Yes,” said Khazri. “I will marry you.”</p><hr/><p>With that, they were committed. To a plan if not a marriage. </p><p>Valdemar left to make arrangements, and Imrael hurried after her to make some of his own. He had been afraid that after their escape attempt, Valdemar would keep him confined, but no one stopped him as he made his way through the warren of tunnels to the library. Why would they? He was only leverage against Khazri, and after the wedding then they’d have no reason not to release him. Or kill him. </p><p>All Valdemar’s slaves needed his help, all deserved it, but he thought he had the best chance of calling back the girl whose name he knew and so when Roe passed him in the corridor with her arms full of flowers, Imrael pulled her aside. He had to hope that they wouldn’t be watching him too closely. Why would they care if the groom’s friend pulled all the tapestries off the walls and sunk them in the stupid fancy bathing pool? The people wept and the animals fled, clustering on the bits that had formed dry islands above the water until he stamped them under.</p><p>Roe watched him, vaguely puzzled but not perturbed, even by the thought that she might be the one to clean it up. </p><p>“Sit down, please,” he told her, drawing up a chair of his own. </p><p>Sensing magic was one of the earliest tricks they taught you, before you even learned to cast yourself. There was a lot of nuance to the subject, but it was one of the few things Imrael preferred not to overthink. Easier to unfocus his eyes and let them slide across the room until they caught on a bright parhelion of power. The pool was ablaze with it, the large silver mirror upon the vanity, the jewellery and stone flowers, his clothes, the tapestries, the crystals set in sconces that gave off a smokeless light. Old magic clung like cobwebs to the very walls themselves.</p><p>But there was one enchantment he’d seen woven only a day ago; Rysserova’s tapestries with their tiny, intricate threads of magic. Now Imrael knew what to look for, he could see the thin, shining remnants of a spell beneath Roe’s cap of short-cropped curls. Just like he’d stitched sentience into creatures of cloth, Rysserova had stitched a whole new person into Roe’s mind. </p><p>The threads were tightly woven, ensnaring the girl’s mind like a web around a fly. Struggle pulled it tighter and a careless tug would tear apart the spell and the girl’s sanity too. It took the better part of the morning to painstakingly unravel the enchantment, coiling it up into a metaphysical skein. When her mind was clear, Imrael’s own mind throbbed with the effort and his back ached from so long sat unmoving. The back was easily fixed with a little extra magic, but that just made the headache worse.</p><p>“Roe?” he asked carefully. “Roe, can you hear me?” </p><p>The girl blinked, the happy complacency in her eyes giving way to disorientation and bright terror. She bolted to her feet and backed away, putting the chair between them. “Roe,” Imrael repeated. “It’s alright. I came from Greywatch. Your grandmother sent me. I’m here to get you home.” </p><p>“There were horses.” the girl said uncertainly. “The biggest horses I ever saw.” She looked around at the marble opulence of the room. “Where is this place?”</p><p>Was there an explanation that wouldn’t terrify her? Anything short of the truth felt cruel after months at the mercy of Valdemar’s enchantment. “You were taken by the Hunt,” he explained. “They ensorceled you to serve them but I’ve just broken the spell. I’m going to help you and the other thralls get home.” Better not to mention Khazri, in case Rysserova had some other means of spying. </p><p>Unprompted, this time, Roe sank into the chair, mouth hanging slack, her eyes wide and lost. </p><p>While it felt like forever to Imrael’s strained nerves, she was only a few moments in collecting herself - she rallied far better than Imrael likely would have in her situation. She closed her mouth, swallowed, and said, “What do I do?”</p><p>“You don’t <em>have </em>to do anything,” he told her. “This is going to be dangerous, and if you don’t want to help then you can find somewhere to hide, or I can put you back under the enchantment. You’ll be safe then, and I’ll try to think of some other way to help you.” Though he was damned if he knew what it would be. He still had the skein of magic in his hands and dropping it back over her would be the work of one horrible moment. </p><p>Roe shook her head, curls bouncing, small face as grimly determined as her sister and grandmothers’. “Tell me what the plan is.”</p><p>Relieved, Imrael offered her the vial Khazri had given him. “You can get into the kitchens, yes? I need you to get this into the food, the drink, anything so long as it’s not hot, that will denature- uh. Make the potion not work.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“It will put everyone in the castle to sleep.” Diluted and taken orally, the wyvern venom might not be fatal. Imrael found he wasn’t overly concerned if it was. “Make sure you and the other humans in the castle don’t drink it.” </p><p>“They took other people from Greywatch!” she said, jumping to her feet again. “They’re here! We have to get them out.”</p><p>“We will,” Imrael said firmly. “But right now I don’t have the time to disenchant them properly, nor the guarantee that all of them will recover as swiftly as you have. I’m going to need your help to save them. Do you think you can manage?” Some people would bend under such pressure and some would rally. Roe was luckily of the latter sort; she nodded, small chin jutting out.</p><p>“I can do it,” she said. </p><p>“You’ll need to pretend to obey any of the other elves in here so they don’t realise you’re free. You remember your way around?”</p><p>“I think so. It’s like remembering a dream. If I don’t think about it too much - ” Her words were in her native accent again, soft and rounded; they’d have to hope no one noticed, but Imrael thought they had a fair chance. None of the other elves seemed particularly interested in conversing with their slaves. </p><p>“I’m counting on you,” Imrael said. He meant it, but an unenchanted kitchen girl still left them desperately short on allies. Perhaps there was dissension among the hunters - Imrael couldn’t imagine they were convinced by Valdemar’s plan to leverage a discarded bastard son into anything other than a beheading - but he had no time to feel things out. There was only one woman in the Spur that he was certain wasn’t happy with Valdemar.</p><hr/><p>“Campion!” he shouted. Impossible to get a proper echo in the library, filled as it was with books and ancient fur, but he did his best. “How does the day find you?”</p><p>“Why, Imrael,” said Campion, putting down her book. “Always a delight. I hear you had an eventful evening.”</p><p>Imrael shoved her feet from the desk and hopped up to sit where they had been. “I don’t have time for pleasantries. You know what’s happening today?”</p><p>“Oh yes. I tried to tell Val it was short notice for a wedding, but she doesn't care for my advice. Probably wants to secure things before he runs away again.” Campion dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did he <em>really </em>tear her throat out with his teeth? He looks so sweet.”</p><p>In the tapestry behind her, the huntswoman, and the stag she was butchering had both leaned in to listen. Imrael glared at them. “Can we talk somewhere else?”</p><p>Campion pursed her lips and then waved her hand in a crisp circle. Imrael’s ears popped as the spell took hold. “Ryss’s little spies won’t hear us now. What did you come to say?”</p><p>“Valdemar murdered her parents,” Imrael said baldly. “Your ward. I’m not going to let her do the same to Khazri. We’re escaping before she can and I want you to help us.”</p><p>“She wants to marry him, not murder him.”</p><p>“The wedding hasn’t even happened and she almost killed him last night. Once she has what she wants - ” he couldn’t bring himself to spell out what that was “ - How long before the next hunting accident?”</p><p>Campion seized his hand and stared deep into his eyes. Hers were deep black and infinitely sorrowful. “I empathise,” she said. “Truly, I do. You’re very brave and very lovely-”</p><p>“I am, but that’s hardly relevant to my current situation,” Imrael said, taking back his hand. “My friend is about to be forced into marriage with a woman who will at best abuse him and at worst have him killed once her purpose is served. Will you help us?”</p><p>The smirk Campion had worn through all their interactions slid slowly from her face like porridge dripping down a wall. “You’ve misjudged me. I’ll say it baldly; I can’t go home while my ward lies unavenged. Right now, Valdemar’s power is the only thing keeping the wrath of the Summer Court at bay. If I help you and it goes as badly as your previous attempt, I have no home to run to.”</p><p>“You’re a real piece of shit.</p><p>“Oh yes. But I’m also alive, and I intend to remain so.” She touched her forelock. “I wish you the best of luck. Truly.” She picked up her book again and opened it in front of her face, so there was no chance of him continuing the conversation. </p><p>Out in the corridor, Imrael pressed his forehead to the cold stone and scrunched his eyes closed, feeling foolish. He didn’t need her help, but he’d been counting, more than he’d realised, on there being at least one other elf in this awful house with something approaching a conscience. </p><p>A day of work and he’d scraped together one ally and one person who probably wasn’t going to actively sabotage him. No time for more, though, with the wedding only an hour away. </p><p>He hurried back to his room and threw on the clothes laid out on his bed, sun-coloured silk crumpling under his desperate, fumbling fingers. He left his hair hanging loose down his back - there wasn’t time to do anything nice with it, and his hands were shaking too much anyway. Then he sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette, trying to pull himself together. One boring service, an awkward dinner, and everything would be over one way or the other.</p><p>A polite knock at the door had him spilling ash and cinders into his lap. It was Three, looking happier than ever, and Imrael reluctantly smiled back and followed him past apartments and kitchens and wine cellars, down the long stone steps to the chapel.</p><p>The slaves had hung garlands of wildflowers all about the space, but their bright freshness made the sheets of dusty cobwebs all the grimmer. Imrael took his seat and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch the spiders going about their work above. </p><p>“Smoke?” said a voice, and he opened his eyes to see Jacith holding out a case of cigarettes.</p><p>“Is that allowed?” he said, taking one. He didn’t trust her but he desperately wanted more nicotine. </p><p>“It’s my temple,” she said, taking her own and conjuring a spark to light it. </p><p>Imrael lit his own and inhaled thick, fragrant smoke. She at least had good taste in tobacco. “Smoking and forced marriages. Got it. I’m sure the groom’s abject terror will only spoil things a little.”</p><p>“I’m sorry for that. I know you had a prior claim.” It was the first time anyone had acknowledged what had to be obvious. </p><p>“That’s a hideous thing to say.” Smoke coiled up towards the ceiling, to catch in the cobwebs and stain them even greyer. “This isn’t wrong because he’s mine. He doesn’t want this.”</p><p>“I know - better than you, I think - who Khazri Il’harren is and what he needs.” She drew on her cigarette and the flaring tip reflected in the red depths of her eyes. </p><p>“You don’t know anything about him!” Imrael snapped, cigarette crumpling as his fingers clenched. “You just want Valdemar to go ahead with her plan so you can go home.”</p><p>“That’s what everyone wants, no? A home. And for an apostate bastard son of a whore this marriage is the best thing that could happen to him. No more of this miserable half-life, living on the margins of a world that isn’t his. He can be welcomed home with honour. I’m sure he’s afraid and I’m sure you’ll be sad to lose him, but this is what’s best for him.”</p><p>Imrael opened his mouth to retort and closed it again. </p><p><em> I miss the quiet</em>. </p><p>Marriage to Valdemar and a return to Zalach’ann was the worst fate Imrael could imagine for Khazri, but he’d never stopped to ask if it was the worst thing Khazri could imagine for himself. Khazri had run because Imrael had insisted, even though he’d wanted to stay. He’d said, only hours ago, that he still wanted the marriage, and Imrael had read that through his own lense.</p><p>How did you weigh trauma against family, culture, home? It seemed obvious to Imrael, but he was barely an elf, barely wanted to be. How was he meant to understand how Khazri felt about any of this? </p><p>But Khazri had given him the poison. That couldn’t be misinterpreted. “Perhaps you’re right,” he lied. </p><p>Jacith patted his hand. “Come find me after the ceremony if you want to talk more,” she said. “I’m always willing to offer spiritual guidance. Or another cigarette.” Imrael stubbed out his on the bench beside him as she got up and took her place before the altar.  </p><p>The chapel had filled up as they’d been talking. The Hunt wore their bone masks, watching from behind the eyes and yellowed teeth of long-dead predators. Not a Zalach’anni tradition as far as Imrael knew, but something all of Valdemar’s own. </p><p>She entered side by side with her groom. They both wore white for the Lady’s webs, about to bind them tighter. It was the same colour worn by sacrifices, Imrael had read once. It was a good colour on Valdemar, who looked tan and healthy and as self-satisfied as a cat. </p><p>White made Khazri look like something dead. The only colour on him was a red-grey fur clasped around his neck. When he recognised it, Imrael couldn’t quite choke off the cry of furious grief that rose in his throat. </p><p>At the altar, Jacith shot him a look of what might have been sympathy before stepping forward to meet them. Cradled in her palms lay a white spider, as pale and delicate as bone. Khazri recoiled so violently Valdemar seized his elbow to keep him on the dais. She whispered something in his ear, sliding her hand down from his elbow to his waist, holding him against her. </p><p>Imrael wasn’t close enough to hear what she said, but Khazri let her take his hand, let her twist their fingers together, let Jacith’s spider step onto the back of his hand, although it shook. The spider moved with slow, graceful steps, trailing a thin, silver thread behind her, binding them together until death. </p><p>Valdemar, crowned in antlers, unclasped his cloak and let the wolf hide puddle behind him on the floor. Then she kissed him.</p><p>Imrael had kissed Khazri for the first time upon a frozen shore littered with the bones of a dead god. It had been so cold their teeth had clacked together. Khazri had tasted of blood and lakewater, his fingers curled awkwardly against Imrael’s chest until he worked out what to do with them and buried them in Imrael’s hair.</p><p>There was as much claiming in Valdemar’s kiss as there had been in stripping away the fur. With her bound hand, she tilted up his chin, while her free arm clasped him against her. Khazri let it happen, as passive as a doll and, helpless in the audience, Imrael bit his own tongue until he tasted blood.</p><p>The best you could say of this kiss, and the whole awful ceremony, was that it was over quickly. </p><p>In Jatt Hari, a wedding that didn’t last three days was considered scarcely worth having, or so his parents said. In Ferris, regardless of the money spent and the gods worshipped or snubbed, you could usually count on the bride and groom looking happy. </p><p>Before the food was even served, Valdemar’s hunters were drunk and merry with it, but the dining hall’s stone walls ate their laughter. Valdemar joked with them, leaning down the table, while at her side Khazri sat still and silent as stone. Only his eyes were alive, following Valdemar’s hands as she raised her fork and her goblet to her lips.</p><p>The food upon the table was as extravagant as the first meal they’d eaten there; a tureen of soup with sliced orphanay egg floating upon the top beside a dish of their fried feet; the wyvern’s haunch, cooked in milk to remove the acrid aftertaste. Imrael would not have touched the meat even if he hadn’t been too nervous to eat, but the woman sat next to him complained loudly of its toughness. </p><p>“Eat, love,” Valdemar chided Khazri once, and Khazri made a show of putting food upon his plate and then touched none of it. He looked, once, to Imrael who let his own eyes flick to Roe as she poured his wine. Her hands were shaking enough that red stains blossomed upon the tablecloth. One look at her fixed, sickly smile and it was painfully obvious that the enchantment had been broken but no one else seemed to have noticed anything was wrong. </p><p>When Imrael raised the goblet to his lips, he was careful not to let the wine touch his lips. Wyvern venom was a potent paralytic, fatal in large doses or when the wyvern itself was around to devour you as you lay helpless. It would be harmlessly broken down by the stomach’s acid but it could be absorbed by the soft tissues in the mouth.</p><p>Imrael’s head throbbed as the chatter rose and his stomach seethed with so much bile he worried he’d somehow swallowed the venom somehow after all. Campion, sat at his left, kept trying to draw him into conversation about a duel she was planning to fight, but Imrael could not follow the thread of the conversation, could barely nod and smile in the appropriate places. He was too busy watching her face, watching the other diners for some hint that the venom was taking hold, but the Hunt continued to laugh and jest and drink until Valdemar rose to her feet whereupon a hush fell over the company. </p><p>Imrael had been watching her closest of all and knew she’d downed at least a bottle already, her voice was clear and unslurring when she spoke. “You followed my mother,” she said. “Into exile, always trusting she would lead her out again. Today I keep my promise. This is the beginning of a new alliance, one that will see everything that we have lost restored, and more. My duty to you as your liege will be fulfilled.” She raised her goblet and wine slopped over the edge of it, staining the white silk of her sleeve. “But first, I have a duty to my new husband.” The hall erupted into cheers and raucous laughter. </p><p>The spider silk bonds had been severed after the ceremony, but Valdemar took Khazri’s hand again and tugged him to his feet. </p><p>Imrael remembered the wolves at the stone, lithe grey shadows dwarfed by the onrushing hounds. He tried desperately to catch Khazri’s eye, but he wouldn’t look anywhere but down at the wolf fur now clutched to his chest. There was a sick taste at the back of Imrael’s throat. His pulse pounded in his ears and his throat felt like it was closing up, and he worried again about the venom. </p><p>“Why so glum?” said one of the hunters, leaning across the table. She was pure Zalach’anni, with garnet eyes set in a bone-white face and long, pale braids cascading over her shoulders. “Were you hoping she’d pick you?”</p><p>“Valdemar has terrible taste,” said Campion, consolingly. “My Imrael’s far prettier - ” Imrael buried his elbow in her side as savagely as he could but she only laughed. “And more fun!”</p><p>“If I were Valdemar, I’d like to have a matched set,” said another woman.</p><p>“That’s how they do things in Ferris, isn’t it?” said the woman with the braids. “Women with two husbands, men marrying men or not marrying at all. <em> Scandalous </em>.” She looked desperately intrigued by the prospect.</p><p>A week ago, Imrael would have made some joke or rebuttal, but he didn’t have it in him to speak. He was focused on his magic, sending it groping through the Spur for the tattered, tied off threads of enchantment he’d woven into the ugly little creature he’d made the day before. After all the time spent unpicking the enchantment on Roe, he’d hoped it would be natural, but though he could feel the creature, grazing in a field of embroidered peonies, he couldn’t see beyond the woven blue lakes and mountains that bounded its world. Magic only worked when you could put your entire will behind it and the greater part of Imrael didn’t want to see Khazri follow his wife up the stairs to her chambers. He didn’t want to know for sure whether there was a knife concealed within the wolfskin, although he hoped. He hoped so hard his head throbbed with it -</p><p>And then something hit Imrael in the side and his wavering concentration broke completely. </p><p>He opened his eyes to see the woman to his right had fallen face first into her plate. </p><p>Chaos was unfurling like a banner. Half the guests were slumped over the table or laid out upon the floor. The rest were groaning, slurring and staggering, clutching at each other. Imrael shoved back his chair and got to his feet. He’d known this would happen - had been counting on it - but watching it play out was another thing entirely. His instincts and his training told him to check pulses, clear airways, purge the poison from their bodies. He stamped on them as hard as he could, and a woman’s clutching hand beside as he backed towards the door. </p><p>“It’s him!” cried one of the men from Rysserova’s sewing circle. “He did this!”</p><p>One of the hunters, apparently less affected, got to her feet and drew the long, bronze knife at her side. She stepped towards Imrael who stepped back, tripped over a prone body and fell, cracking one elbow on the stone floor and the other on the body’s skull. </p><p>“It wasn’t!” Imrael said, quite honestly. “I didn’t poison anything.” </p><p>“<em>Kill him</em>,” said the man, in the thin shriek of a dying rabbit, and the hunter stepped forwards, clearly confused but just as clearly ready to murder Imrael anyway. </p><p>If the blow didn’t finish him outright or send him into shock then Imrael could close the wound, but that was hardly a comforting thought with a knife sliding towards his chest.</p><p>As a healer, there were things you weren’t supposed to do. Poisoning people was one of them, but there were worse things by far, and the least of them was this; they taught you how to reach out and take control of a patient’s failing lungs, to force air in and out. Now, he did the opposite, wrapping his magic like a fist around the woman’s chest. </p><p>She made a croaking sound. The point of her sword wavered, tracing silver circles in the air as she raised her other hand to her throat. She croaked again, more desperately. </p><p>Imrael lay very still, hoping she wouldn’t alight upon the obvious solution to her predicament and run him through. Stopping the flow of blood would be quicker, but riskier and he only needed to hold it a little while, until she lost consciousness-</p><p>There was the slick sound of a blade piercing flesh and took Imrael a moment to understand what had happened. The hunter’s knife dropped from her hand and her body dropped after it, heavy and lifeless across Imrael’s shins. </p><p>“You were fools, all of you!” said Campion, flicking the blood from her sword, her cape swirling like smoke above a burning city. “This is the vengeance of the Queen of Summer! Did Valdemar think that she could plot and scheme, kidnap and murder, and face no repercussions? You have all been puppets dancing on my strings.”</p><p>There were only two other women standing; everyone else was doubled over, moaning. Imrael, still on the ground, raised his hands. He wasn’t sure what he would do with them, was still reeling from what he’d done to the first hunter, but both of them backed away as though he’d threatened them with a weapon. </p><p>Or maybe it was Campion, who really was threatening them with a weapon. She offered him her hand, which Imrael ignored, scrambling to his feet. Before anyone could try to stop him, he ran from the hall, slippers sliding uselessly on the mansion’s stone floors. </p><p>From behind him came the scuff of soft shoes and the whisper of cloth, and he looked up to see Rysserova standing in the doorway. </p><p>“I don’t have <em> time </em>for this.” Imrael meant to snarl it but it came out more of a wail.  </p><p>“Did you think I wouldn’t notice I’d lost sight of one of our rooms and control of one of my servants?” Rysserova said. His hands were folded demurely in front of him, but Imrael could sense the power coiling around him like thread onto a spindle. “Even <em> Campion </em> must have figured out your little trick with the poison.”</p><p>“So what if you did figure it out?” To Imrael’s surprise, he didn’t feel afraid. In his line of work, you developed a sense for where the fractures lay and there was something broken deep within the Spur’s foundations. “You didn’t stop me and now it’s much too late.”</p><p>“Is it?” Rysserova spread his hands, magic coiling tighter. A thousand lifeless eyes stared from the walls; women and men, boar and hounds, dragons and a wonky wolf that looked more like an elephant. </p><p>The thing about power was, it was only useful if you knew how to channel it, and Imrael was willing to bet Rysserova had never learned how to fight. Imrael hadn’t either, but Khazri had taught him to throw a punch so, before Rysserova could get creative, he balled up his fist and jabbed it into Rysserova’s eye. </p><p>It wasn’t a very good punch. Rysserova yelped and reared back, clutching his face, tears of pain leaking from behind his hand. “What - ”</p><p>Imrael hit him again. It hurt enough that his own eyes watered, but it was easy to spell the pain away. </p><p>“<em>Ow</em>,” said Rysserova and grabbed him by the hair. The flailing and scrabbling that followed wouldn’t be counted among the epic battles of Harrad, but it was hard-fought. Imrael was raked across the face and lost a handful of hair before he managed to get Rysserova in an approximation of a headlock. </p><p>“Stop - ” He was cut off by an elbow to the gut. He tightened his grip until Rysserova stopped flailing and the only sound in the hall was the ragged gasps as both of them struggled to get their breaths back. “<em>Stop</em>, Ryss. There’s no point pretending this isn’t what you wanted.”</p><p>“You don’t- Let go. <em> Let go</em>.” </p><p>Warily, Imrael did and Rysserova straightened and made a vain attempt to smooth out his hair. One eye was swelling and one of his sleeves had been torn loose. “You don’t know anything,” he said sullenly. </p><p>“I think I do.” Imrael pressed his hand to his cheek, where the gashes torn by Rysserova’s nails were oozing stickily, and wiped the blood and the wounds away. “Centuries stuck under your sister’s thumb and now this madness? If Khazri’s mother doesn’t kill you all, where does that leave you? Zalach’ann? I’m sure you’ll love it there.”</p><p>“That’s the world we live in.” Rysserova had enough of his mother’s Zalach’anni blood that the bruise was forming red and stark, but the threads in his torn sleeve reared up and writhed like snakes as they pulled themselves up his arm to reattach themselves.</p><p>“Now you can go to the Summer Court, or Ferris, or wherever suits your fancy,” Imrael said. “But you can’t stop me. Your sister’s already dead.” He hoped to the gods that was true. Either way, he didn’t have time to argue. </p><p>Rysserova opened his mouth to retort and Imrael shouldered him aside and sprinted out into the courtyard. </p><p>The confusing leaps from tapestry to tapestry hadn’t told him to find Khazri, but Imrael knew someone who could.</p><p>The disturbance had roused the hounds and all of them were wailing as Imrael sprinted into the kennels. The hounds snapped at him as he passed, unsettled by the noise and the stink of fear drifting from inside the hall, but Imrael ignored them. Beryl was locked in a kennel of her own curled in one corner, silent and staring, almost feline in her self-possession. But the moment the bolt was shot she leapt up and slammed into the door with such force she knocked Imrael from his feet. He scrambled up, sent a burst of magic to take the swelling from a bruised knee, and followed her tail as it vanished from the building. </p><p>If she’d truly wanted to, Imrael thought she could have outpaced him, but she let him keep her tail tip in sight as he trailed her through the house, which hummed like a wasp’s nest hit by a rock. Up she went and up until Imrael was panting and dizzy from the spiralling staircases</p><p>The room she led him to, at the Spur’s narrow peak, had to be Valdemar’s. </p><p>There were magics a healer was sworn never to perform but oaths or not, as he threw open the door, Imrael was ready to take the woman on the other side apart; to flood her organs with acid, to turn healthy flesh to crawling cancer, to flense and cauterise. </p><p>Whatever he’d been expecting- no, he knew what he was expecting and trying not to think about it. But the room was heavy with the thick stillness of a summer night, close as velvet. The floor was covered in furs, ankle-deep, but the stone beneath had shrugged them off, rising into ripples and cresting peaks like waves on a frozen sea. Some magic that she’d tried to work, though to what effect Imrael couldn’t say. </p><p>No breeze disturbed the scarlet drapes that obscured the bed or the metallic stink of blood hanging in the air. </p><p>Righteous anger warred with naked fear as Imrael seized the velvet</p><p>“Don’t,” said Khazri, stepping out of an adjoining room. “It’s a mess.” He was barefoot, dressed in a long linen shirt, belted at the waist, and doeskin leggings, ragged at the bottom where he must have cut away a few inches of extra fabric. “Her boots don’t fit,” he said, following Imrael’s gaze, as though that was all the explanation required. And then he saw Beryl and dropped to his knees to greet her. The wolf’s rush knocked them both down, and Khazri laughed, delighted or relieved. </p><p>However sweet, Imrael couldn’t keep his attention on the reunion. glanced back to the bed, where, through a chink in the hangings, he could see a single bare foot. The sheets were glossy red silk, and though Imrael was sure there was a great deal of blood, it was impossible to tell how much. Gore usually did not bother him but the dregs of his fear remained and he hesitated to look. “Is she…?” </p><p>“Dead.” Khazri sat up, Beryl still trying to lick his face. </p><p>“Are you…?” </p><p>“Fine.” Though it looked like his nose had bled recently and there was fresh swelling around his eye socket, he did look much better. Perhaps it was the reunion with Beryl, who was still towering over him, paws on his shoulders, his arms around her neck.</p><p>Imrael dropped to his knees and held out a hand. When Khazri nodded, he put his fingers to the incipient bruise, smoothing it away and getting his palm covered in wolf spit. “<em>Truly </em>fine?” he asked, wiping it on the drapes. </p><p>“Fine. The venom worked.” Wolf at his heels, Khazri wandered over to a bureau and started pulling out drawers, randomly until he came out with a box of jewellery; earrings and cloak pins in white Zalach’anni gold. </p><p>“Are you really going to rob her?” Imrael blurted, shaky with relief. “That’s a bit tacky.”</p><p>Khazri shrugged. “Inheritance. I’m her widower.”</p><p>Imrael had to concede that was a singularly compelling point. “Fair enough, carry on.”</p><hr/><p>Pockets clinking, they ran down the stairs, almost bowling over Campion who was running up, sword in hand. “Oh,” she said. “I was just on my way to- to rescue you.” She had the decency to look embarrassed. </p><p>“Thank you,” said Khazri. Sarcastically, but if you didn’t know him it was easily confused with grave sincerity, which was how Campion seemed to take it. She bowed low over her arm. “You’re unharmed?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“I’m glad to hear it. I would offer you the protection of the Queen of Summer, but I’m sure you’d rather be on your way.”</p><p>“And it might be awkward having us around confusing the narrative,” Imrael said snidely. He rather hoped that Rysserova took his advice and went to the Summer Court with his own version of what had happened here. “Thanks <em>so </em>much for rescuing us. We’re freeing the servants. Don’t try to stop us.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t dream of it. Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure.”</p><p>Imrael gave her his filthiest look but she merely hummed and kept heading up towards Valdemar’s chambers. Perhaps she wanted a trophy, perhaps she was hoping for money, which made Imrael feel even better about Khazri reading her coffers</p><p>Outside the dining hall, Khazri hesitated. “You free the servants,” he said, drawing a knife. Too ornate to be one of his own; it had to be Valdemar’s. “I’ll make sure no one follows us.”</p><p>“They’re incapacitated,” Imrael said, uncertainly. “They won’t follow us.”</p><p>“They might. Even if they don’t, they’ll follow the servants. Greywatch won’t be safe.” Left alone, Khazri would kill them all and not think twice but he waited, expectantly, for Imrael to fight him for their lives. </p><p>Imrael looked around the hall, at the smiling people still enchanted, unable to run or even react to the twitching bodies spread before them. The skins pinned to the walls; lion leopard and the freshly cured wolf skin. Khazri with powder and blood smeared across his cheeks. </p><p>Healers were sworn not to use their powers to harm, but when you found a tumour, a knot of festering, necrotic flesh, you didn’t stay your scalpel. </p><p>“You’re right,” he said. “Do it.”</p><hr/><p>Despite its comforts, no one could bear to spend another night in the Spur. They piled up crates and furniture against the wall to form a ramp and took what they could to make camp under the stars. Everything of value that Khazri hadn’t looted and Campion and Rysserova hadn’t taken in their separate flights, the newly freed thralls took with them. </p><p>“It was all ours anyway,” said Roe. “They stole from Greywatch and Andover and Turring.”</p><p>The tapestries they left upon the walls, their creatures staring out at the empty halls, but in a fit of sentimentality, Imrael cut his little wolf-elephant free and pocketed it. </p><p>It was his only companion as he sat long hours in the prickly heather, untangling the last of the enchantments that held the people of the Spur in thrall. It was fiddly, exhausting work; unwinding the enchantment left him with a dull ache behind his eyes and answering the thralls’ confused questions about where their masters were and whether they needed to clean the dining hall was its own kind of depressing. </p><p>There was no sign of Khazri. When the butchery was finished, he and Beryl had been first over the wall, out of earshot and then out of sight, and Imrael realised too slowly to even call after them.  </p><p>And so Imrael cut the Spur’s slaves free of its web and tried not to think about Khazri. Whether he was alright. Whether he was coming back. Whether Imrael should have followed. </p><p>There were twenty-three slaves in all. Some of them left as soon as the spell was broken, taking what they could carry or nothing at all. Some of them lingered, waiting so that they could travel home with everyone from their own village, or wandering the dim stone halls like ghosts. Roe wouldn’t go back inside the house, but she lingered by the stables, fetching water for the horses and hounds. “It’s not their fault,” she said. “Also I want to keep her.” She was standing outside the stall of a tall black horse, stroking the white blaze on its brow.</p><p>“Your family are waiting for you,” Imrael said gently. </p><p>She stuck out her jaw again. “I saved everyone here. I’m responsible for making sure they get home safely.”</p><p>Remembering a little of what it was to be a teenager, Imrael kept his face straight and gave her a serious nod. “You did. I don’t know what we would have done without you.” She was still trying to look defiant, a mask for a discomfort it took him a moment to parse. It had been a while since he’d spoken to a normal child, brave but alone outside a silent house, with mile upon mile of dead moor between her and home. “When everyone’s free, maybe you could help me get to Greywatch too? I need to go that way, and I don’t want to get lost.”</p><p>In the manner of teenagers everywhere, she shrugged as though that didn’t comfort her, but her face relaxed. “I could do that. If you’d like. What about your friend?” </p><p>“He’ll find me when he’s ready.” He always did. This was nothing new, Imrael reminded himself, and didn’t listen in the night for howling. </p><p>They - Imrael, Roe, and the black horse - set out for Greywatch late the next day, after a long morning spent coaxing the reluctant animals up over their precarious pile of furniture. Roe was ebullient one moment, nervous the next, and Imrael threw himself into entertaining her, building up the story of her heroics, because it was a kind thing to do that cost him nothing. And because it distracted him from searching the plains for the shadow of a wolf. </p><p>A couple of Greywatch’s men and women had gone on ahead of them which meant their welcome was warmer by far than it had been days ago. When the tower was still a grey thumb on the horizon, they saw two figures hurrying down the road towards them. Yen, with Mara hobbling at her side, but when she saw her sister she broke into a sprint and threw herself into her arms.</p><p>Yen was more cautious. “They put the ‘fluence on folk,” she said warily, eyes flicking between Imrael and Roe and Mara’s tearful reunion. Mara had dropped her shears but Yen still held a scythe in her hands. </p><p>“I removed it. It wouldn’t hurt for them to sleep in the tower tonight, just to be safe,” Imrael added when she looked unconvinced. </p><p>“They going to come after them?” </p><p>“There won’t be any reprisals.”</p><p>“You killed them?” </p><p>“The Hunt is dealt with. We can’t promise that other elves won’t take note, move into their territory - ” He cut himself off. “They’re dead,” he said baldly. </p><p>Yen nodded. “Good.” She offered him her hand, which was so unexpected, he almost forgot to shake it. She didn’t offer him a place to sleep that night, but he couldn’t blame her for it. She and her people were probably as sick of elves as he was. At least this time Mara let him mend her leg before they left him waving like a fool in the middle of the road, with directions to Sanovar that he immediately forgot. </p><p>It was still early but rather than press on, trusting to his own limited sense of direction, Imrael stepped off the road and walked until he found a vaguely flat patch of ground to set up camp. </p><p>To wait for Khazri to come back. </p><p>It felt a little on the nose to compare Khazri to a wolf going to ground to lick its wounds, but that didn’t make it any less true. </p><p>He hugely relieved but not entirely surprised when, halfway through his attempts to build a fire, a pile of wood appeared at his elbow. “I’ve been looking for Jacith,” Khazri said and began stacking the wood and kindling with a little more care than was strictly necessary. “She wasn’t in the hall. I think she’s alive, still.”</p><p>Beryl was with him. She had always been the shyer of the two wolves and the more independent, but she kept so close to Khazri that as he’d built the fire up, they’d kept tripping over each other. Stumbling, like a limb was missing. Of course, he was still wearing the awful wolfskin cloak Valdemar had gifted him and Imrael bit his tongue against the urge to ask him why. Khazri was strange and pragmatic and could grieve however he chose and, short of shoving him in another frozen lake, Imrael doubted he was going to get answers. </p><p>“We’ll keep an eye out for her,” he said, though the priestess was the furthest thing from his mind. There were a hundred things he wanted to ask; if Khazri was alright, if he wanted to talk about Jeff or Valdemar or his family. He wanted to step around the fire and draw Khazri into his arms, draw him into their tent, see if his hair smelled of pine and wolf instead of vervain and the clamminess of cold stone. In the end he settled on, “To Sanovar tomorrow?” </p><p>“Yes,” Khazri said. He got a lot of mileage out of a few words, and this ‘yes’ could have crossed the continent. He hesitated then said, very carefully, like how a different man might reach out to pet a strange dog, “Are you alright?”</p><p>“Of course,” Imrael said, realising as he did so, the full extent to which that was a lie. “Nothing awful happened to me the whole time. Almost unfair, right? The gods could’ve divided all the horror up a little more evenly.” </p><p>“We did the right thing.”</p><p>“I know we did! I never said we didn’t.”</p><p>“I know you,” Khazri said wryly. </p><p>Imrael winced. “I don’t think we did the <em>wrong </em>thing. But…” He thought again of how casually Valdemar had taken people as possessions, of her brother’s indifferent complicity. Of Khazri, dressed in Zalach’anni finery, and of his own hands, ready to turn living flesh against itself for vengeance’s sake. “It’s so <em> easy </em>,” he said slowly. “To do what they did. They had power, so they used it. And if I’d been born in the Summer Court or Zalach’ann, if I’d lived that life…”</p><p>“I used to wonder about that a lot. What it would have been like if they’d kept me.” Khazri tugged distractedly at Beryl’s ears. “More and more, I think the spiders were for the best.” His smile was a knife in the twilight. “I make a terrible husband.” </p><p>“I think you did a pretty good job.” Plenty of things had attracted him to Khazri; the mystery most of all, his looks, competence and his shy, abrupt kindness. But Imrael was still with him months later, despite the increased risk of death, because they made such an implausibly good team. “If, a couple of centuries from now, I completely lose it and start enslaving people - ”</p><p>“I’ll kill you,” Khazri said. “Don’t worry.” It was a joke but Imrael had no doubt at all that he’d really do it which was perversely comforting. He rose and Imrael saw the indecision on his face, but then he stepped around the fire to Imrael, settling against his side. Beryl followed and, as soon as he was seated, laid her head and half her body in his lap. </p><p>“So,” Imrael said, reaching down to stroke her muzzle. “We’ve crossed off ‘god’ and ‘elven nobility’. What do we do next?”</p><p>“Sanovar. I like the almond pastries they do there.”</p><p>“Pastries feel like a step down,” Imrael murmured. </p><p>With the wolf in his lap, Khazri’s range of motion was limited, but he slid his hand into Imrael’s, the fingers cool and rough against his palm. “They’re good pastries.” </p><p>It wasn’t alright, but it was close enough.</p>
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